“I’m flying!” she shouted, happily. “Oh, Ryana, this is wonderful!”
Despite knowing that this was not really the Sorak that she loved, but another personality entirely, Ryana could not help feeling a lightness at seeing “him” so transported. Normally taciturn and stoic, sometimes grim and often moody, Sorak had never really given himself over to the emotion of joy. Perhaps because whatever part of him could do that had been the basis for what became the entity Kivara. She had none of his other qualities. They were two completely different people, of different ages, different genders even, who just happened to share the same physical body.
Kivara was like an irrepressible young girl ruled only by her passions and her curiosity. She didn’t know any better and seemed to lack the ability to learn. Or perhaps she simply didn’t care. Of all the personalities who made up the tribe of one that she knew as Sorak, Kivara was the most unpredictable.
The Guardian could always be counted on for her wise and thoughtful council and strong, maternal, stabilizing influence. The Ranger rarely spoke and remained largely self-contained, the hunter and the tracker, the strong and able male who played the role of the provider.
Lyric was the innocent, the naive and playful child who was content to look at the world with constant wonder and express himself in song. In some ways, he was the male counterpart to Kivara, save that he lacked her stubborn willfulness and amoral instincts. Of all Sorak’s personalities, Lyric was the closest to the Inner Child, who slept cocooned deep in the collective subconscious of the tribe.
The Shade was the complete opposite side of that coin, the dark and menacing, terrifying, beastlike entity contained within all men, submerged for the most part deep within Sorak’s subconscious, emerging without warning only when the tribe was severely threatened. Sometimes Sorak could control him. More often, he could not. Rarely did Sorak even remember what had occurred while the Shade took control of his body, but Ryana had seen on a number of occasions what the Shade could do, and it was frightening.
Screech was that part of Sorak that was closest to the animal kingdom, an evolutionary throwback to a time when they all were little more than animals themselves. He could commune with beasts and speak to every Athasian species in its own language, understanding their instincts and behavior and capable of mimicking their behavior patterns.
Eyron was, in some ways, the most human of Sorak’s varied aspects, even though Sorak had no human blood. At least, Ryana thought, not to her knowledge or his. Eyron was coldly pragmatic, the thinker and the planner among them, but his nature was often cynical and pessimistic. He was the cautious side of Sorak’s personality, developed into a discrete identity. Much of the time, Eyron could be supremely aggravating, especially given his intelligence, but he was a vital part of the whole, without which Sorak would have been incomplete.
And then, of course, there was the mysterious Kether, whom none of the others could explain. Kether was a part of them, and yet not a part of them. Sorak insisted that Kether did not spring from within him, but came, somehow, from without, an ethereal and powerful, serene and spiritual otherworldly entity that came upon him like a visitation from some other plane of existence. But Kivara___
Ryana knew that there was never any way of predicting what Kivara was liable to do. The Shade was easily the most frightening of Sorak’s personalities, but at least Ryana knew what to expect of him. With Kivara, she was never certain, and so Kivara made her feel the most uneasy. She did not come out often, but when she did, her behavior was usually willful and irresponsible. And Ryana suddenly realized that a fragile wooden raft, held together by nothing more than dagger plant fibers and antloid spit, buoyed up high above the ground by the swirling vortices of air elementals, was hardly the best place for Kivara to emerge suddenly and assume control of Sorak’s body.
“Look at me!” Kivara shouted, leaping to her feet and throwing out her arms like wings. “I’m a bird!”
The raft gave a lurch as the balance shifted, and Ryana became alarmed. She grabbed Kivara by the leg. “Sit down, you little fool!” she shouted. “You want to upset the raft and send us both plummeting to the ground?”
“What’s the matter?” asked Kivara tauntingly. “Afraid?” It was Sorak’s voice, only it was pitched higher, and it had a completely different quality-coy and mischievous, challenging and stubborn. It was the voice of a child dancing on the edge of a precipice, completely oblivious to the risk it faced.
“Yes, I am afraid,” Ryana replied, “and so would you be if you had any sense! This raft is all that keeps us from plunging to our deaths. Now sit down and stop acting like a child!”
“Oh, pooh!” Kivara said, petulantly, but she sat down again. Actually, she plopped down, simply dropping to a sitting position the way children often do, and the raft gave another violent lurch. Ryana grabbed her for support as the raft rocked dangerously on the wind currents, and Kivara giggled.
“I ought to pull your breeches down and spank you!” said Ryana, angrily.
“Oooh, that sounds like fun!” Kivara countered, giving her a coy sidelong glance. “Why don’t you?”
Ryana glared at her. “Because I know you too well, that’s why. You would never feel it. The moment I began to warm your bottom, you would duck under and I’d find myself in the embarrassing situation of spanking Sorak.”
“Oh, you never know, he might enjoy it,” said Kivara. “And so might you, for that matter. Maybe it’s what you really want.”
“Ohhh, you’re insufferable!”
“And you just don’t know how to have any fun.”
“Fun?” Ryana said. “Do you even have any idea what we are doing? Where we are going?”
“What difference does it make?” Kivara asked, looking around at the spectacular view spreading out below them. “Look at this! Is it not incredible?”
“Kivara, we are on our way to Bodach, the city of the undead,” Ryana said firmly.
“Undead?” Kivara said, glancing at her uncertainly.
“Yes, undead. An entire city of them. There will be hundreds, perhaps thousands.”
“Well, what we going there for? That’s stupid!”
“We have to go there to find a talisman known as the Breastplate of Argentum and take it to the Sage.” Kivara made a face. “Him, again. All we ever do is go here, go there, running all over this dreary desert like a stupid erdlu, and for what? What has the Sage ever done for us?”
Ryana tried to fight down her mounting irritation. In the past, whenever Kivara had come out, the others would allow her some freedom, but her unpredictable and willful nature eventually made it necessary for the Guardian to exert control and force her to duck under once again. Lately, however, the last several times Kivara had come out, she had resisted the efforts of the Guardian to hold her in check. It was a worrisome development. And Ryana did not wish to antagonize Kivara at this point by calling for the Guardian. This was certainly not the place for Kivara to respond with one of her violent temper tantrums.
“The Sage works for us all,” Ryana explained patiently. “He is the only power that stands between us and the dragon kings, the only hope for the future of our world. And he is the only one who may be able to help Sorak learn the truth about himself.”
“Well, I don’t see why that matters,” said Kivara stubbornly.
“It matters to Sorak,” replied Ryana, struggling to control her temper. Kivara could be absolutely infuriating.
“It wouldn’t change anything, you know,” Kivara replied. And then she gave Ryana an uneasy sidelong glance. “Would it?”
“I do not know,” Ryana said. “That is a question the tribe shall have to answer for itself when we confront the Sage. Wouldn’t you want to learn where you came from?”