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.