The Outcast

1

Varanna stood out on the balcony of her private chambers in the temple, watching as Sorak practiced with blades in the courtyard below. Though the villichi were all schooled in the discipline of psionics, they were trained in the use of weapons as well. At the convent, weapons training was stressed not only as a martial art and a means of keeping fit, but also as a discipline to help hone the mind and train the instincts. Years of intense training in the arts of combat, coupled with psionic abilities developed to perfection, made the villichi extremely formidable fighters. Even a mul gladiator would think twice before attempting to take on a villichi.

As the high mistress watched Sorak’s quick, confident and graceful movements, she recalled the small, emaciated child Elder Al’Kali had first brought to the temple. Ten years had passed since then, which made him perhaps fifteen, sixteen, or seventeen. Sorak himself did not know how old he was, and psionics could not pinpoint his age. He had such formidable psionic defenses that not even Varanna could probe past them, and that was only one of the difficulties she had faced with the young elfling.

To begin with, no male had ever been admitted to the convent before. There were approximately five hundred villichi in residence at the secluded sanctuary in the Ringing Mountains. The senior priestesses and the high mistress resided in the temple itself, while the others shared common living quarters in the outbuildings on the convent grounds. At any given time, there were between seventy-five and a hundred priestesses absent on pilgrimages. That left at least four hundred women in residence at the convent, ranging in age from six to sixty, not including the senior priestesses. The youngest of these was eighty-five and the oldest, Varanna herself, over two hundred. All these residents—and one young elfling male

It was an unprecedented situation. Within living memory, no male on Athas had ever been born villichi. Villichi were always human females, and they were born with the gift—some said the curse—of strong psionic talent. Because of the dangerous raw power of their psionics, villichi were almost always shunned. Sometimes, they were even cast out of their homes, though to do so was considered a bad omen. Not cruel, thought Varanna wryly, merely unlucky. Psionic powers could be developed by anyone to some extent, provided the person possessed the intelligence, patience, and dedication to persevere in studying the art. Most people were born with the latent capacity for at least one psionic talent, but that talent was usually “wild,” which meant it could not necessarily be tapped at will. Many people didn’t even know they had the ability. It required years of intense training under a master for even minor talents to be fully brought forth. Even then, few could develop their psionic skills to the same extent as the villichi, who were born with the ability in full flower.

They were different in other ways, as well Females born villichi had longer life spans than was normal for humans. They were taller than average, more slender, and with longer limbs, rather like elves, although in elves, those physical traits were even more pronounced. They were extremely fair-skinned—not quite albino, but very pale, so that the sun burned rather than tanned them. To protect themselves, they wore their hair very long, and donned light cloaks whenever they went out into the daylight.

No one seemed to know what caused a girl to be born villichi. A villichi child was usually born to perfectly normal human parents, and such parents often considered the daughter a curse. Not only did she look different, freakish by most people’s standards, but she possessed fully developed psionic abilities. She was capable of reading her parents’ thoughts, and the thoughts of all their friends and neighbors who came to visit. As a result, she developed intellectually much faster and much earlier than ordinary human children. But just as normal human infants master elementary physical movements, such as crawling, before they begin to walk, so did villichi infants need to master their inborn abilities before they could fully control them. Frequently, villichi infants unintentionally caused objects to fly around the house, creating much damage and consternation. They could direct blasts of psionic force at their parents and anyone unlucky enough to be in their vicinity. A villichi baby who was hungry often did much more than merely cry for milk.

For such reasons, the parents of villichi children were often completely unequipped to deal with them, and both the parents and the child led a miserable existence. The phenomenon of villichi birth was uncommon, and there was no one to whom the parents of such a child could turn for help. If there was a master psionicist residing nearby, they might go to him for counsel, but he often had students of his own, who either traded for his teaching with indentured servitude or else paid for their studies. A villichi child would be an unnecessary burden to him, and would usually possess psionic abilities rivaling his own. Sometimes kindhearted masters took in villichi children, at least until a villichi priestess could be found to relieve them of the responsibility. But most masters simply refused.

One way or another, girls born villichi often became outcasts. If they were not located by a priestess on a pilgrimage, they eventually made the journey to the Ringing Mountains on their own. There, in a high, secluded valley, they would find a place where their talent could be nurtured, guided, and developed. They would find their own society, one that was devoted to study, discipline, and contemplation. They would never marry or have children, for villichi were born sterile, and most would remain celibate.

When her turn came, each of the priestesses would make a pilgrimage to learn about the state of the outside world and to seek out other villichi. At such times, there were occasionally opportunities to indulge in the pleasures of the flesh. Varanna neither forbade nor encouraged such activities, for she felt that each priestess needed the freedom to make such choices on her own. Though some priestesses succumbed to curiosity, most of the women tended to avoid the company of men. They did not find their thoughts attractive.

Sorak was different. His thoughts were completely inaccessible, even to Varanna, who had devoted over two centuries to mastery of the psionic arts. When the others first learned that a male had been accepted at the convent, their reactions were almost all negative. The strongest reactions came from the younger priestesses, who were aghast at the idea of a male in their midst, especially a male who was part elf and part halfling.

Human males were bad enough, they claimed, but elves were never to be trusted and halflings were savage, feral creatures who ate not only the flesh of animals, but human flesh, as well. The reactions of the priestesses ranged from astonishment and dismay to anger and even fear. None of them truly understood what it meant to be a ‘tribe of one’ and lacking that understanding, they were frightened. Some of them even formed a delegation to make a formal protest to Varanna, an action without precedent, for the word of the high mistress had always been accepted without question. However, Varanna had held firm. Sorak was a male, and he was not human, but in every other respect, he may as well have been born villichi.

“He is gifted with powerful psionic talents,” Varanna had explained to them. “The strongest I have ever seen. Such talents must be nurtured and properly developed. He is also an outcast. You all know what that means. Every one of you has known how it feels to be shunned and rejected, to be looked upon with distrust and even fear. Every one of you has known the pain of being unwanted and misunderstood. When you first came here, you were all granted shelter and acceptance. Are we to deny the same to Sorak merely because he is a male, and an elfling?”

“But males seek only to dominate women,” one of the young priestesses replied.

“And elves are notoriously duplicitous,” one of the others said.

“And halflings eat flesh,” added another with disgust.

“As do humans,” Varanna replied calmly. “We villichi do not eat flesh by choice, out of respect and veneration for other living creatures. Sorak is but a child, and he can be taught that same respect. Elves” lie, cheat, and steal because that is the way of their society, where skill in such things is a measure of accomplishment. That is not our way, and that is not how Sorak shall be taught. As for the attitudes of males toward women, such attitudes result from the society in which they are brought up. If you treat Sorak with respect and accept him as an equal, he shall respond in kind.”

“But even so, Mistress,” said Kyana, the priestess who had been chosen to present their arguments, “the mere presence of a male in the convent will be disruptive. He is not truly one of us, and never can be, for he was not born villichi.”

“No, he was not,” agreed Varanna. “In some respects, he is as different from us as we are different from other humans. And because we were born different, we were shunned. Should we now treat Sorak the way others treated us?”

“It is not a matter of how we shall treat him, Mistress, but how he shall treat us,” Kyana had replied. “He is a tribe of one. How much is known about this rare malady? You, yourself, Mistress, have said that you have only seen it twice before, and that only when you were very young. None of us has any way of knowing what this elfling may be capable of. He does not possess a normal mind. How do we know that we have not taken a serpent to our bosoms?”

“He does not possess a normal mind?” Varanna said, echoing Kyana’s words. “Is that what you truly said? Are any of us normal? Each of us is here because others have said the very same things about us. We do not judge people by their appearance, by their gender, or by their capabilities, but by what is in their hearts. We do not condemn anyone simply because they are different. Or do the things that we believe and teach here at the convent matter to us only when it is convenient? If we shrink from those beliefs when they are put to the test, then we make a mockery of them. I shall not discuss this matter any further. Let the choice be yours. But if you choose to expel Sorak from the convent, then you shall have to choose a new high mistress, as well. I promised the pyreen elder to give the elfling shelter and to care for him. I shall not break my word. If Sorak leaves, then so shall I.”

That had settled the matter of Sorak’s staying at the convent, but other problems remained to be solved. For a long time, Sorak did not speak, and Varanna was not certain if the silence resulted from his not knowing the human tongue, or from the trauma he had suffered. Varanna did not know whether he had been cast out of an elvish tribe or a halfling tribe, and thus wasn’t sure which language he had been exposed to. Then Sorak started having nightmares during which he cried out while he slept. He cried out in the halfling tongue for the most part, which suggested he had spent his first few years among a halfling tribe, but occasionally his words were elvish.

When he was awake, he never spoke at all.

Elder Al’Kali had done much to bring him back from the pitiful condition in which she had found him, but he was still weak, and his strength returned slowly. During his first few weeks at the convent, Sorak stayed with Varanna in her private chambers in the temple. Her repeated attempts to probe his mind continually met with failure. Either she was unceremoniously “tossed out,” or else it was as if she had encountered a stone wall. Nevertheless, she kept on trying.

When Sorak had started to recover his strength, she decided it would be best for him to take up quarters with the priestesses. It would help him assimilate into life at the convent, and would discount claims of favoritism. However, once again, when Varanna brought Sorak to one of the residence halls, there had been alarmed reactions. The priestesses did not have their own individual rooms or cubicles. They slept on the upper floors of the residence halls, with their beds all lined up against the walls. The lower floors were set aside as large common rooms, where they could work at their looms or other crafts, or merely socialize. When Varanna had a bed installed upstairs for Sorak, the other women, especially the younger ones, became rather disturbed.

“But... he cannot sleep here!” one of them had said, a fifteen-year-old whose bed would have been next to his.

“And why not?” Varanna asked.

“But, Mistress... how shall we disrobe?”

“By pulling your robes over your heads, the way you usually do,” Varanna said. “Unless there is a new method of disrobing I am not familiar with.”

“But, Mistress... the boy shall see!” the young priestess protested.

“What of it?” asked Varanna, testily. “Are you ashamed of your body? Or does your nakedness make you feel vulnerable before a male, even one who is merely a boy? If that is the case, then you shall always feel vulnerable, for clothing makes the poorest sort of armor.”

“It... it is not seemly,” another young priestess stammered hesitantly.

Varanna raised her eyebrows. “Are you suggesting that my actions are improper?”

“N-No, Mistress, but... but... he is a male, after all, and if he should see us naked, it will give him lewd ideas.”

“Will it, indeed?” Varanna asked. “What sort of lewd ideas?”

The priestess blushed. “You... you know.”

“No. Tell me.”

The priestess took a deep breath while the others gathered around, watching to see how she would reply. “Males think of only one thing when it comes to women,” she said.

“Ah, I see,” Varanna replied. “And you are all so frightened and defenseless that, you are afraid of a mere boy?”

“No, Mistress, of course not, but...” she took a deep breath and plunged on. “It will create tension and disharmony.”

“Only if you allow it to,” Varanna replied. “Sorak is but a child. His thoughts and attitudes about such things are not yet formed. If you accept him and treat him as a brother, then he will grow to love and accept you as his sisters. If you teach him respect for women, that is what he shall learn. But if you hide your bodies from him, as if they were unnatural, then he will grow curious and come to look upon a naked female body as forbidden fruit. And if you treat him differently simply because he is a male, then he will grow to treat women differently, simply because they are female. If there are things about the way that males act and think you find objectionable, then here is your opportunity—to form the character of a male who does not act and think that way. And if your best efforts fail in this task, then perhaps there is some fault in the way you act and think.”

“He may place his bed beside mine, Mistress,” said a firm, young voice. “I am not afraid.”

Varanna turned toward Ryana with a smile. At six, she was the youngest priestess at the convent, and in many ways she was different from the others. Unlike most villichi, who were born with blond hair and blue or light gray eyes, Ryana’s hair was absolutely white and her eyes were a striking bright green. She was also more normally proportioned, tall for a girl and slender, but lacking the elongated limbs and neck of most villichi. Judging by outward appearance alone, it Would have been difficult to tell she was villichi. However, she had been born with powerful psionic abilities and a strongly independent spirit, which resulted in her being intelligent beyond her age. She had been at the convent only a little less than a year. Her frustrated and beleaguered parents were poor people from Tyr with four other children, all of whom had been born normal. They had been more than happy to surrender the responsibility of caring for Ryana, who had proved more than they could handle. “You see?” Varanna said. “The youngest and the smallest among you has a heart that is stouter and braver. The rest of you should look to Ryana for an example of what it truly means to be villichi.”

Ryana’s words had shamed the others, and they had grudgingly accepted Sorak in their hall. His bed was placed next to Ryana’s, and from that day forth, she had assumed responsibility for him like a protective older sister, even though they were roughly the same age. It was Ryana who daily reported to Varanna on Sorak’s progress, and the first time Sorak ever spoke, it was to utter Ryana’s name. The two became practically inseparable.

The fears of the other young priestesses about a male elfling in their midst proved groundless, and soon they were all calling him “little brother.” They adopted the tigone cub as if it were their pet, but while it tolerated their caresses, it was clearly Sorak’s beast. He called it Tigra. At night, they would let Tigra out to hunt for food, and shortly before daybreak, the gatekeeper would always hear it scratching at the heavy wooden doors. When it wasn’t out hunting, it slept at the foot of Sorak’s bed or followed him as if it were his shadow. And as time passed, it grew to be a very large shadow.

Sorak grew as well. As Varanna watched him practicing down in the courtyard, his leanly muscled chest and arms gleaming with sweat, she recalled how scrawny and emaciated he had been when Elder Al’Kali had first brought him to the temple. He had grown into a fine, strong, and very handsome young man. No, she thought, mentally correcting herself, not a man, for he wasn’t human, after all. However, the blend of elf and halfling parentage had resulted in his looking almost completely human, except for his pointed ears, which his thick, shoulder-length, black hair often hid. He was tall, just under six feet, and his features, so delicate and elfin when he was a child, had grown sharp and rather striking. However, he did not possess any of the exaggerated features of an elf. Exaggerated, at least, from a human perspective. His ears were the same size and appearance as human ears, except for their sharp points. His eyes were deeply set and very dark. The eyebrows were no longer as delicately arched as they had been when he was a child, but high and narrow. The nose was sharp and almost beaklike, yet not unattractive. The cheekbones were prominent, and the face was narrow.

Overall, Sorak had a rather feral, haunted look about him. He had the kind of face people would immediately notice and remember, just as they would remember his direct, unsettling gaze. It was the sort of gaze that would make people look away. There was something in that gaze that would always mark Sorak as different. Varanna could not say exactly what it was, but she knew no one could fail to notice it. There was a turbulence in his gaze that hinted at the storm behind it.

In all her years, Varanna had only twice before encountered the phenomenon the villichi called a tribe of one. Both of the affected people were female, both were born villichi, and both had suffered terrible abuses as small children. The two women Varanna had known were senior priestesses at the temple when she was a mere girl, and had died long since. Varanna had never even heard of any others. The condition was so rare that, to Varanna’s knowledge, no one on Athas knew about it save for the villichi. Yet, she had long suspected that being a tribe of one did not result from being born villichi, but from some painful and unbearable experience in an early stage of life that the young mind simply could not cope with. And so the mind fragmented into discarnate entities.

She was not certain if it had anything to do with psionic talent, but there did seem to be a relationship between the two. It was as if the fragmentation of the mind somehow resulted in a compensation of abilities.

For all Varanna knew, this fragmentation could happen to anyone, and there may well have been other, similar cases among normal humans, perhaps even among the other humanoid species of Athas, though she had never heard of any. Of course, if no one understood the condition, or were even aware it could exist, it might simply pass for madness.

Most people, she thought, would undoubtedly consider it madness, yet it did not seem to result in delusions or irrational behavior. Sorak, however, showed an inconsistency of behavior that could seem irrational because it was not the behavior of the same individual, but of different individuals sharing the same body, each with his or her own distinct voice and personality. And, Varanna soon discovered, each with distinct abilities.

Varanna was not certain how many of them there were. In the beginning, Sorak had not conspicuously displayed any of his other personalities, but he did experience occasional lapses—periods of time he later could not account for, could not remember. It was as if he had been asleep, but his behavior did not seem to change dramatically during those times. However, Varanna knew that during those lapses, one of his other personalities was in control, and she learned to watch for changes in behavior that would signal such lapses.

The changes were often subtle, but they were nevertheless discernable to anyone who knew Sorak well. It was as if the other entities residing in his mind were cautiously attempting to conceal their emergence. As Varanna observed Sorak’s different aspects, she soon learned to differentiate them.

The first one she had met was called the Guardian. The first time she had knowingly spoken with the Guardian, Sorak was ten or eleven years old.

A curious pattern had developed in his education, a pattern that exasperated his instructors. They knew Sorak had unusually powerful abilities, but he did not seem to respond well to psionic training. He grew frustrated with his repeated failures, yet stubbornly kept trying. Regardless of the effort, however, he could not perform even the most elementary psionic exercises. He would concentrate until his face turned red and sweat started to break out on his forehead, all to no avail. Then, when he was utterly exhausted and apparently had no energy left to continue, he would suddenly accomplish the exercise successfully, without even being aware of having done so. His instructors were at a loss to account for this peculiarity, and Varanna decided to look into it herself. She summoned Sorak and gave him a simple exercise in telekinesis.

She placed three small balls on a table before him and told him to lift as many as he could with the power of his mind. He concentrated fiercely, but to no avail. He could not even move one. Finally, he gave up and covered his face with his hands.

“It is no use,” he moaned miserably. “I cannot do it.”

The three balls suddenly rose into the air and began to describe graceful and complicated arabesques, as if manipulated by an invisible juggler.

“Yes, Sorak, you can,” Varanna said. “Look.”

And when Sorak looked up, the three balls all dropped to the floor.

“You see? You did it,” said Varanna.

Sorak sighed with frustration. “It happened again,” he said. “When I try, I cannot do it. When I stop trying, I succeed, but I do not know how!”

“Perhaps you simply try too hard,” Varanna suggested.

“But even when I try only a little, I still cannot do it,” he said with exasperation. “It simply seems to happen by itself.”

“Nevertheless, it is you who are doing it,” Varanna replied. “Perhaps, in your anxiety, you are creating a block for your abilities, and when you give up in frustration, the block is dissipated, allowing the task to be accomplished, if only for a moment. If you would allow me to probe your thoughts, perhaps I could discover where the problem lies.”

“I have no objection, Mistress,” Sorak said, “and yet a part of me seems reluctant to allow it. I do not know why.”

Varanna knew why, but up to that point, Sorak seemed unaware of his true nature, and she did not wish to prod him in directions he was not yet ready to explore. “You know you have nothing to fear from me, Sorak,” she said.

“I know that,” he said, frustrated. “I cannot understand what it is. Each time we try, I am perfectly willing, and yet some part of me seems anxious to prevent it. I try my best to be receptive, but...” His voice trailed off, and he simply shrugged helplessly.

Varanna had a sudden intuition. “Let us try it the same way it happened with the balls. Do not attempt to be receptive. Simply give up and relax. Empty your mind.”

“Very well.” He slumped slightly on the bench and lowered his head, emptying his lungs with a heavy sigh. Before Varanna could attempt to make her probe, however, he abruptly raised his head and stared at her with a challenging gaze.

“Why do you persist in attempting to invade our thoughts? What do you want of us?”

Varanna suddenly realized that it wasn’t Sorak speaking. At least, not the Sorak she had known up to that point. The voice was the same, and yet the tone was completely different, more demanding, more mature, more self-assured. Even Sorak’s physical demeanor had undergone a subtle change. The language of his body, a language that often spoke more eloquently than words, had become suddenly defensive. “Who are you?” she asked in a soft voice, leaning forward slightly.

“You may call me the Guardian. I know who you are. You are the mistress.”

“If you know who I am, then you should also know that my only intentions are to help you,” replied Varanna. “All of you,” she added.

“With this?” the Guardian said as Sorak indicated the fallen balls with his outstretched hand. Suddenly, they rose into the air and hovered there.

“With that, and other things, as well,” Varanna replied.

“The boy is confused,” the Guardian said. “You are causing him distress. You make him think he can do this, but he cannot. He does not have the ability.”

Varanna suddenly understood. “But you do,” she said, with a nod. “I see that now.”

The balls leaped over one another briefly in midair, then fell bouncing to the floor. “I fail to see the point in this. It is meaningless and serves no purpose.”

“It is not meaningless, and it does serve a purpose,” Varanna countered firmly. “It is an exercise designed to sharpen telekinetic skills.”

“I have no need of such exercises,” the Guardian said curtly. “I have only cooperated to ease the boy’s frustration, which you and others cause.”

None of the other priestesses would have dared to speak so to the high mistress, and Sorak would certainly never have addressed her in so challenging a tone. Then again, Varanna thought, this wasn’t Sorak.

Even though she had some understanding of what it meant to be a tribe of one, she had to keep reminding herself of that. This entity seemed much more mature than Sorak, she thought, more confident, and certainly more combative. Then with a flash of insight she suddenly realized that this was precisely its role. The name alone should have alerted her, and she mentally castigated herself for not seeing it at once, but the shock of the Guardian’s emergence had thrown her.

“You seek to protect the boy,” she said. “I only seek to teach him.”

“He cannot learn that which you would teach,” the Guardian replied. “And the rest of us have no need for such instruction.”

“Then there are others among the tribe, beside yourself, who possess psionic talent?” asked Varanna, leaning forward intently. Here, at last, was the explanation for Sorak’s failure to display his psionic powers. He did not really have them, in a sense. The other members of his inner tribe did.

“Tribe?” said the Guardian. “Why do you call us that?”

“You are many who form a tribe within one body,” said Varanna, “a ‘tribe of one.’ It is rare, yet not unheard of. I, myself, have known two others, though it was many years ago. And you are doing Sorak no service by sheltering him from his true nature. He knows that he is unlike others, and not merely because he is an elfling. He knows that he possesses powers he cannot summon forth, yet he does not understand why. This is what confuses him and causes him distress. You cannot protect Sorak from the truth about himself. If you persist in your efforts to shelter him, then you shall only cause him pain and suffering.”

“The boy suffered when he was abandoned in the desert,” said the Guardian. “We sheltered him from his suffering. He was prepared to surrender to death. We gave him the strength to go on.”

“But there is a limit to how much strength you can give him,” said Varanna. “Despite your efforts, the boy would have died had not the pyreen found him. She brought him here so that we could give him shelter and the knowledge necessary to comprehend his nature. He will be stronger for this knowledge of himself, and with the proper training, he can learn to live more easily with what he has become and call upon his abilities much more effectively. There is strength in a tribe that is united. But so long as you shelter Sorak from the truth about himself, he shall always remain weak.”

The Guardian was silent for a while, considering what she had said. When the Guardian spoke again, it was in a more relaxed tone, though still a cautious one. “There is wisdom in your words. Yet, if you have known the truth about us all along, you could have told Sorak all these things yourself. Why have you refrained?”

“Because I, too, care for Sorak’s welfare,” said Varanna. “And it is not enough merely to tell someone the truth. He must be prepared to hear it”

“Perhaps the time has come, then,” the Guardian replied. “The boy bears great affection and respect for you. Prepare him to experience this truth. Then, in our own way, we shall reveal it to him.”

The next thing she knew, Sorak was gazing at her once again, a puzzled expression on his face. “Forgive me, Mistress,” he said. “I must have fallen asleep. I had the most peculiar dream....”

That had been the beginning of Sorak’s true awakening. Gently, and with great care, Varanna had told him the truth about himself, a truth he had, up to that point, not even suspected. And as she spoke, the Guardian gently eased Sorak’s anxiety and apprehension. In the coming weeks, the Guardian gradually allowed Sorak to discover more about his multiplicity. Initially, this strange learning process took place, for the most part, while Sorak slept and dreamed. Then, when the context of his situation started to become familiar to him, Sorak experienced the gradual emergence of his other personalities, without suffering lapses, but remaining conscious on some level while they were dominant in his body. It was a slow process, however, and one that was still unfolding.

From the beginning of Sorak’s inner journey of self-discovery, the Guardian had been his guide and Varanna his mentor. She studied the journals of the two priestesses who had had the same condition, spending hours each day in the temple library, trying to relate their experiences to Sorak’s. In some ways, it was easier for Sorak because the alternate personas of his inner tribe were inclined to be cooperative, and there did not seem to be any competition between them. Varanna believed this was the result of Sorak’s ordeal in the desert. His young mind had fragmented because it could not endure the pain and suffering inflicted on him. To survive in the desolate Athasian desert, his different aspects all had to work together.

Every evening, Sorak would come to Varanna’s chambers, and they would discuss the Guardian’s gradual revelations. In time, Sorak came to accept and understand his condition. As the years passed, he learned how to communicate with his inner tribe and how to function with them, as well as how to give way and allow them to work through him. It was, however, a journey that was far from finished. Both Varanna’s intuition and the knowledge she gleaned from the others’ journals told her that new discoveries still awaited him. And, recently, she had come to the conclusion that there would be yet another journey for Sorak to undertake, a physical journey, and that he would be embarking on it very soon.

She returned her attention to the weapons practice session down in the courtyard, where Sorak and his instructor engaged in mock combat with wooden practice swords. Tamura was the head weapons instructor at the convent, and at the age of forty-three, she was still young for a villichi. Her physical condition was superb, and none of the other priestesses could even come close to matching her skills with weapons. Yet, though still in his teens, Sorak was already a match for her. That, Varanna thought, was his particular gift. Each of his personalities possessed a talent of his or her own, and Sorak’s was mastery of the blades. He handled the sword and dagger as well as any champion gladiator, and Tamura took great pride in her prize pupil. She yelled encouragement to him with each well-placed blow he struck, and as her other pupils watched their match, no one looked on with more admiration than Ryana, whose own skill with the blades was almost the equal of Sorak’s.

The two had always been extremely dose, Varanna thought, but as they had matured, Ryana’s feelings toward Sorak had grown unmistakably stronger. And they were not the feelings of sister toward brother. There was, on the surface, nothing wrong with that, Varanna thought. They were not related by blood. However, with Sorak, there was a great deal beneath the surface, and Varanna felt concern about this new development.

Ryana was villichi, but she was still human, and Sorak was an elfling—perhaps the only one of his kind. If they were to spend the remainder of their days at the convent, a relationship between them might not pose a problem, but in the outside world, it would not be easily accepted. Further, Varanna did not know if Sorak was capable of fathering any children. Half-breeds were often sterile, but not always. As a villichi, Ryana would never bear any children of her own, whether Sorak would want them or not. These potential problems were, perhaps, insignificant, but there were others that were not.

“He fights like a fiend,” Neela said, coming up behind the high mistress. She stood beside her, watching the contest in the courtyard below. “He is still young, yet already he has surpassed Tamura. Perhaps it is time he took over as instructor.”

Varanna nodded. “Indeed, he is masterful, but he still has much to learri. Perhaps not about the blades, but about himself, the world, and his place in it. I do not think he will be remaining with us much longer.”

Neela frowned. “He has spoken of leaving the convent?”

Varanna shook her head. “No. Not yet. But soon, Neela. I can sense it.” She sighed. “This has been a good place for him to grow, to get his two feet firmly on the ground, but now he must set those feet upon the path that he will walk in life, and that path shall take him away from us.”

“He may have a compelling reason to remain,” said Neela.

“Ryana?” Varanna shook her head. “No, she will not be reason enough.”

“They love each other,” Neela said. “That is clear for anyone to see.”

Varanna shook her head again. “That Ryana loves him, I shall not dispute. But as for Sorak...” She sighed. “Love can be difficult enough for ordinary people. For Sorak, it poses problems that may well be insurmountable.”

Neela nodded. “Then he shall leave us, and that will solve the problem. Ryana will be broken-hearted, but broken hearts can mend.”

Varanna smiled, sadly. “Tell me, Neela, have you ever been in love yourself?”

Neela glanced at her with surprise. “No, Mistress, of course not.”

Varanna nodded. “I did not think so.”