Simon Hawke - Dark Sun - Tribe of One 01 - The Outcast

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The Outcast

SIMON HAWKE

TRIBE OF ONE TRILOGY Book One

TRIBE OF ONE TRILOGY: Simon Hawke

Book One The Outcast

Book Two The Seeker

Book Three The Nomad

Simon Hawke began writing at the age of six, and throughout his life, never wavered from the goal of

becoming a professional writer. Along the way, he worked as a rock drummer, a factory worker, an FM

disc-jockey, a bookstore clerk, a bartender, an Instructor in a broadcasting school, an armed guard for

Hollywood celebrities, a custom motorcycle builder, a shipping clerk, an actor, a radio-production engineer

for the United Nations, a magazine writer and interviewer, and a stand-in for the Shadow when Lamont

Cranston had better things to do. He became a full-time writer in 1978 and has more than fifty novels to his

credit.

Hawke lives alone in a secluded, Santa Fe-style home, which he designed and built in the Sonoran

Desert about forty-five miles southwest of Tucson, on the crest of the Altar Valley, opposite Kitt Peak,

near the Papago Indian Reservation. His interests include motorcycling, history, pistol marksmanship, rock

music and jazz, metaphysics, martial arts, and collecting fantasy art and Indian jewelry. His other works

include the best-selling Time Wars and Wizard of 4th Street series, as well as the Reluctant Sorcerer and

the Nine Lives of Catseye Gomez.

Cover art by Brom.

First Printing: December 1993

ISBN: 1-56076-676-X

Product Code: TSR 2425

Scanned, formatted and proofed by Dreamcity

Ebook version 1.0

Release Date: February, 21, 2004

For Troy Denning with thanks for allowing me to come and play in his world.

Acknowledgments

With grateful acknowledgments to Rob King and Jim Lowder for their editorial support, and Heather

Richards, Megan McDowell, Bruce and Peggy Wiley, Rebecca Ford, and Daniel Arthur for providing

helpful feedback, and Pat Connors for helping to gametest "Hawke's Gambit" on a group of unsuspecting

victims at Tuscon XIX.

Special thanks to Adele Leone and Richard Monaco, who performed services well above and beyond

the call of duty, and to Robert M. Powers, who kept telling me to cheer up, things would only get worse.

And a very special thanks to Bruce Miller, who extends extraordinary generosity to friends and doesn't

want anyone to know. They know, Bruce, that's why they love you.

Hey, Cheryl? Hugs...

Prologue

As the twin moons cast their ghostly light upon the endless wasteland, Lyra stood alone atop the

Dragon's Tooth, waiting for the sunrise. Once each year, for the past thousand years, she had made her

pilgrimage to the summit of the highest peak on Athas to reaffirm her vows and dream the dream she

would never, live to see. A thousand years, she thought as she shivered in her cloak. I am growing old.

It was nearly dawn. Soon the dark sun would rise to glow like a dying ember in the dust-laden orange

sky, and its rays would beat down on the desert like a hammer on an anvil. Only at night was there any

respite from the searing heat. The desert sands would cool, the temperatures would plummet, and the

deadly creatures of the night would leave their nests and burrows to prowl for food. The day brought other

dangers, no less lethal. Athas was not a hospitable world.

Lyra Al'Kali dreamed of the world as it once was, long before her birth. In the moments before dawn,

she would imagine that the sun would rise over the horizon to reveal verdant plains stretching out below her

instead of barren desert tablelands. The foothills of the Ringing Mountains would be forested rather than

strewn with broken rock, and the song of birds would replace the mournful wailing of the wind over the

ruined landscape. Once, the world was green. The sun was bright, and the plains of Athas bloomed. But

that had been before the balance of nature was destroyed by those who thought to "engineer" it,, before the

color of the sun had changed, before the world had been despoiled by defiler magic.

The pyreens were the oldest race on Athas, though with the passing centuries, their numbers had

grown ever fewer. They recalled the Green Age in their legends, the stories that were passed on from

generation to generation as pyreens matured and took their vows. There are not many of us left, thought

Lyra. Each year, she encountered fewer of her kind during her wanderings. She was an elder herself now,

one of the oldest pyreens remaining. Our time is passing, she thought. Even though our lives span centuries,

there will not be enough time to restore the dying planet. We are too few, and we cannot do it all alone.

Each year on the anniversary of her vow-taking, Lyra made the journey to the Dragon's Tooth and

climbed the towering mountain. For any of the humanoid races of Athas-even the tireless, fleet-footed elves

and the nimble, feral halflings--the tortuous climb to the summit would have been nearly impossible, but

Lyra did not make it in her humanoid form. Only once, when she first took her vows, had she made the

climb unaided by her shapeshifting abilities, and it had nearly killed her. Now, she was no longer young, and

even in the form of a tagster or a rasclinn, the climb was difficult for her. Still, she continued to make it

every year, and she would do so as long as she still drew breath. And when she could no longer make the

climb, she would at least die in the attempt.

The first smoky orange rays of sunlight began to tint the sky at the edge of the horizon. Lyra stood

upon the windswept summit, her long white hair billowing out behind her, and she watched as the dark sun

rose slowly and malevolently to burn the desert tablelands below. As she had done a thousand times before,

from the time she had reached her quickening and began the counting of her years, Lyra started to recite

her vows aloud into the morning wind.

"I, Lyra Al'Kali, daughter of Tyra Al'Kali of the Ringing Mountains, do hereby take my solemn vows

and acknowledge the purpose of my life, as every son and daughter of the pyreen has done before me, and

shall do after me, until Athas once again grows green. I vow to follow the Path of the Preserver, using my

powers to protect and restore the land, and to foil and slay defilers who would steal its life for their own

perverted gain. I vow allegiance to the elders, and to the Eldest Elder, Alar Ch'Aranol, Peace-Bringer,

Teacher, Preserver, Dragonslayer. I herewith dedicate my life to follow in his noble path, and pledge my

soul to the service of the Druid Way and the rebirth of the land. So do I vow, so shall it be."

Her words were lost upon the wind as the light from the dark sun flooded the desert landscape far

below her. Just as all our dreams may be lost upon the wind, she thought. Perhaps there would never come

a time when Athas would be green again, not so long as the sorcerer-kings still lived and drained the planet

of its life to fuel their spells, and not so long as dragons walked the world, leaving waste and desolation in

their wake. The Eldest Elder had vowed death to the dragons of Athas, but alone he was no match for their

magic. Even all the pyreen together could not stand against them. For as long as Lyra had been alive.

Ch'Aranol had been seeking to overcome the dragons who had once walked as men, but preserver

magic had never been as strong as that of defilers, and no defiler was as powerful as a fully

metamorphosed dragon.

Many adventurers had met their deaths in trying to do combat with the dragon, and many more would

die if the sorcerer-kings continued to grow in power. Each of them had already embarked upon the path of

metamorphosis that would transform them into dragons. The process was a slow, and painful one, requiring

powerful enchantments, spells that drained the earth of life and sapped the souls of unfortunates who fell

under the sorcerer-kings' dominion.

The Path of the Preserver called for restraint and purity in use of magic, with the spellcaster either

drawing on his or her own life energy, or merely "borrowing" life energy from plants and the earth, taking

only small amounts so that the plants would be able to recover and the earth would not be left forever

barren where the spellcaster had passed. Defilers, on the other hand, eschewed respect for living things and

were motivated solely by greed and lust for power. Defilers cast spells that killed off all the vegetation in

the area, left animals dropping and writhing in their tracks, and leeched all nutrients from the earth, so that

nothing more would ever grow there. Nor did defilers stop at that. Those with enough magical might would

not hesitate to drain power from sentient life-forms, be they elves or halflings, dwarves or thri-kreen, or any

of the humanoid races of Athas-or even the pyreen.

There was madness in defiler magic, Lyra thought, especially in the devastating spells cast by the

sorcerer-kings in their lust to metamorphose into dragons. If she lived another thousand years, she would

never understand it. What did it profit them to gain such incalculable power if all that was left for them to

rule would be a barren world, devoid of life? Where, then, would they turn to seek the enormous amounts of

energy that full-fledged dragons needed to survive? They would kill off everyone and everything, and then,

like the maddened beasts they were, they would him upon each other until there would be only one left, and

that one would hold dominion over a drained husk of planet. As it gazed out on the ruined world of Athas,

that last dragon would have the brief satisfaction of knowing that its power was unchallenged and

supreme-before it slowly starved.

How, thought Lyra, as she sadly gazed out over the parched landscape, could they not see it? How

could the defilers fail to comprehend where it all would lead? The only possible explanation was that the

sorcerer-kings were insane, driven mad by their lust for power, living only to feed that lust. As their powers

increased, their appetites grew. There had to be a way to stop them, but the only way to do that would be to

destroy them, and defilers could accumulate power much faster than any preserver. No ordinary

magic-user could ever stand against them. There was only one chance, one being that could hope to match

their power-the avangion.

There had never been an avangion on Athas. The sorcerer-kings and their minions had seen to that.

They ruthlessly hunted and exterminated any rivals, either defilers or preservers, and the birth of an

avangion took far longer than the creation of a dragon, for it entailed only preserver magic. The path of

metamorphosis was long and painful, involving selfless dedication and excruciating patience. Yet, after over

a thousand years, there was at least a glimmer of hope. An avangion was now in the process of being born.

It would take many, many years, and the sorcerer-kings would do their utmost to seek it out and destroy it

before the cycle was complete. But if their efforts failed and the avangion took flight, then the dragons

would start to tremble in their lairs.

Still, what were the odds? Before the avangion cycle of creation could become complete, it was more

than likely that all the remaining sorcerer-kings would fully metamorphose into dragons, and then it would be

many against one. The surviving pyreens would gladly dedicate the remainder of their lives to guarding the

avangion until its cycle was complete, but no one knew where the solitary wizard who pursued the arduous

metamorphosis could be found. Perhaps, thought Lyra, it is better that way. If we cannot find him, then

neither can the sorcerer-kings. But that will not stop them from looking.

Lyra was abruptly startled out of her reverie by the sound of an anguished, desperate cry. A child's

cry, she thought, blinking with surprise and glancing around quickly. But that was clearly impossible. A child

could not have climbed the Dragon's Tooth. Perhaps some freak trick of the wind had deceived her.... And

then she suddenly realized she hadn't actually heard the cry. It had echoed in her mind. It was psionic cry

for help, a tormented, unarticulated scream, almost like the dying wailings of some animal. Yet it had been a

child, Lyra was certain of it. A lifetime of devotion to the discipline of psionics meant she could not have

been mistaken. Somewhere, a child was in desperate trouble, but for the psionic cry to have been projected

as far as the summit of the Dragon's Tooth meant that it was a child gifted with incredible, inborn psionic

powers. She had never encountered anything even remotely like it before, and she could not possibly ignore

it. Spreading her arms out wide, Lyra started to twirl in place, picking up speed as her form blurred and

grew less and less distinct until, within seconds, she had taken on the form of an air elemental, a whirling

funnel of wind that left the ground and swept down the mountainside, heading for the foothills. Lyra focused

on that cry, trying to judge the direction from which it came, and then she heard it once again, much weaker

this time, as if it were a sob of resignation. She locked onto it and veered slightly to the west, heading

directly for the origin of the psionic cry. As she rapidly closed the distance, she marveled at its strength,

even in the weakness of it. She swept over the rock-strewn foothills and headed out into the desert. Could it

be possible? What would a child be doing out in the desert at night? Perhaps it was with some caravan that

had run into trouble. In the desert, disaster always awaited the next step...

And then she saw it. As she skimmed over the desert, she almost overshot it in her anxiety. There

was no caravan. There wasn't even a solitary wagon, or a party on foot. There was but one child, stretched

out motionless in the sand, with what appeared to be a feral tigone cub moving in for the kill. She had found

it just in time.

Still whirling, Lyra settled to the ground and moved toward the cub, trying to get between it and the

child. Even as it flinched and squinted in the powerful blast of sand she raised, the cub would not move

away from the prostrate child. Tigones were psionic cats, using their power to stalk prey such as this, but

their natural habitat was in the foothills and on the high slopes of the Ringing Mountains. This was the first

time Lyra had ever seen one venture down into the desert. She guessed the hungry young cub had picked

up the child's psionic cry as she had, and responded to it instinctively. She changed shape once again, this

time assuming the form of a full-grown tigone, and she directed a basic, animal-level psionic thought at the

young cub.

"Mine. Move away."

She sensed sudden apprehension in the tigone cub, and the thought that came back at her was both

challenging and surprising. "No. Not prey. Friend. Protect." The young cub bared its fangs in warning.

Lyra was completely unprepared for such a response. Not only was the cub not interested in the child

as food, but it was fully prepared to take on a full-grown tigone to protect it. Lyra reverted to her humanoid

form."Easy, now," she said to the cub aloud, reinforcing her tone with soothing thoughts. "I have come to

help your friend."

Warily, the cub allowed her to approach, but remained poised to attack if she made the slightest hostile

move toward the motionless child. This, too, surprised Lyra. Ordinarily, she had no difficulty in using her

psionic skills to control beasts, but even as she exercised her domination over the young cub, it refused to

submit completely to her will, intent above everything else on protecting the child.

Slowly, keeping a wary eye on the cub, Lyra crouched beside the small body of the child and gently

turned it onto its back. And she was confronted with yet another surprise. "What have we here?" she said.

The child, at first glance, looked human. It was male, only five or six years old, and yet, as she turned

him over, she saw the pointed ears and the sharply defined features-high cheekbones, angular jawline

tapering down to a slightly pointed chin, a narrow and well-shaped nose over a wide, thin-lipped mouth. ...

All these things indicated that the child was an elf, and yet he did not possess the long and extremely thin,

exaggerated frame of an elf. His limbs were proportioned as a human's, not an elf's. The legs and arms

were too short, and the ears, though delicately pointed, were too small. They were the same size as human

ears, except that they had points.

The boy also had some of the features of a half-ling-the deeply sunken eyes, the thick and almost

manelike hair that cascaded to his shoulders, the delicately arched eyebrows. Halflings, too, had pointed

ears, but the child was too large to be a halfling. And yet, he possessed the physical traits of both halflings

and elves.

A half-breed, Lyra thought with astonishment. But elves and halflings were natural enemies. And it

was unheard of for an elf to mate with halfling, although she supposed there was no reason why it should

not be possible. Clearly, it was, for she was looking down at the result of just such a mating. And that

explained what the child was doing alone in the desert. Lyra felt a tightness in her stomach. He had been

cast out. The result of a forbidden union, he had doubtless, up to this point, been hidden and protected by his

mother, but as he grew, it became obvious what he was, and the poor thing had been taken out into the

desert and left to die.

However, the child clearly possessed a strong will, for, unaided and without food or water, he had

almost succeeded in reaching the foothills of the

Ringing Mountains. Not only that, but he was gifted with incredible psionic talent. Young and untutored

as he was, he had nevertheless been able to project his anguished mental cry of rage and despair to reach

her at the very summit of the Dragon's Tooth. Few adult psionicists she knew, even those who had studied

the discipline for years, could hope to match such a feat. She had to save him. He was not yet dead, but he

was unconscious and very, very weak. That last mental shout had been his mind, pushed to its final

extremity, howling out fury and frustration at having come within sight of his goal and yet failing to attain it.

"Never fear, little one," she said. "You shall not die."

She scooped out a bowl in the desert sand and shut her eyes, reaching deep within herself to summon

up the necessary stored energy for a spell to create water. As she concentrated, water slowly bubbled forth

in the depression she had scooped out. She dipped her fingers into it and sprinkled a few drops on the boy's

lips. His mouth twitched, and a parched tongue slowly emerged to taste the precious drops. Gently, she

probed his mind... and then recoiled sharply at what she found. As the boy's eyes flickered open and he

stared up at her, she shook her head sadly and said, "Oh, poor little elfling! What have they done to you?"

The young priestess hesitantly approached the high mistress at her loom and waited to be recognized.

Sensing her presence, the older woman spoke to her without turning around and taking her eyes off her

weaving.

"Yes, Neela, what is it?"

"Mistress, we have a visitor who wishes an audience with you. She awaits outside your chamber."

The high mistress frowned and turned to face her. "Outside my chamber? You mean she was

admitted through the gates? You know we do not allow outsiders on the temple grounds, Neela. Who is

responsible for this?"

"But, Mistress... she is pyreen." "Ah," the high mistress replied. "That is a different matter. The druid

peace-bringers are always welcome here. Did she give her name?" "She is called Lyra Al'Kali, Mistress."

"And you have kept her waiting?" the high mistress said, her eyes growing wide. "Foolish girl! She is one

of the pyreen elders! Show her in at once!". The young priestess hesitated. "Mistress... there is but one

more thing..."

"Well? What is it? Be quick about it!"

"She has a child with her. A male child." "A male? In a villichi temple?" The high mistress considered.

"The child is pyreen?"

The young priestess moistened her lips nervously. "No, Mistress. I... I do not know what it is. I have

never before seen such a child. And there is a tigone-" "Atigone!"

"A mere cub, Mistress, but she says it will not leave the child, and is bonded to it."

"How very curious," the high mistress replied. "Show Elder Al'Kali in, Neela. We have already kept

her waiting too long."

The young priestess went out and returned a moment later with Lyra and a small boy, whom the

pyreen held by the hand. A young tigone cub trotted in after them, staying close to the boy. When they

stopped, the cub lay down at the boy's feet. The high mistress first noticed the boy's emaciated appearance

and vaguely unfocused stare, but then she quickly saw what Neela meant when she said that she had never

seen such a child before. In her sheltered life at the temple, Neela knew little of the outside world, but the

high mistress immediately saw that the boy was a half-breed, which in itself was not uncommon on Athas.

However, he appeared to have been born of a union between a halfling and an elf, and that was an unheard

of rarity.

"Peace to you, Mistress Varanna," Lyra said. "And peace to you, Elder Al'Kali," the high mistress

replied. "You honor this temple with your presence."

Lyra inclined her head slightly in acknowledgment of the compliment. "You are wondering about this

child I have brought with me," Lyra said. "I know that males are not admitted to the villichi temple, unless

they are pyreen, but then this is no ordinary male child, as you can plainly see. However, rather than explain

further at this point, I invite you to ascertain that for yourself, using your abilities."

With a slightly puzzled expression, the high mistress nodded and said, "Very well." Then she directed a

subtle psionic probe at the child. Almost immediately, she gasped and her eyes grew wide. The child had

displayed no visible reaction to the probe. In fact, he seemed to be displaying no reactions whatsoever. It

was as if he were in a fugue state. Yet, when she touched his mind with hers, she had been hurled back

with such startling force that it took her breath away. However, in that brief instant of contact, she had

discovered why the pyreen had brought the child to her. "A tribe of one?" she said softly, with

astonishment.

Lyra nodded. "You have, no doubt, experienced his latent power, as did I."

"But... so strong!" said the high mistress. "I have never before encountered its like in one so young!"

"Nor have I, in all my years," Lyra replied. "You see why I have brought him to you."

"Where did you find him?"

"In the desert, struggling to reach the foothills," Lyra replied. "He was cast out by his tribe and near

death when I came upon him. His call reached me at the summit of the Dragon's Tooth."

"So far?" asked the high mistress, amazed. She shook her head. "And he has had no training?"

"How could he have?" Lyra replied. "He is no more than five or six years old, at most. Until recently,

he must have been hidden by his-mother, who would have known his fate if his origin was discovered. And

in an elf or halfling tribe, whichever cast him out, he would not have received any schooling in psionics."

"No, obviously not," the high mistress said. "To think of such incredible potential nearly being

destroyed... to say nothing of the savage cruelty of leaving a mere child to such an awful fate. His ordeal

must have been responsible for the fragmentation of his mind, and it may also have brought forth his latent

talents. It is very rare to encounter a tribe of one. I have seen it only twice before, both times in girls who

had been born villichi and were violently abused before they were cast out. This is the first time I have ever

seen it in a male. Poor child. To think of the terrible torment he must have suffered..."

"I could think of no one else who would be capable of understanding it," said Lyra. 'It was my hope

that, despite his being male, you would agree to grant him shelter at the temple."

"Of course," said the high mistress, with an emphatic nod. "There has never been a male in residence

at the villichi temple, but this time an exception must be made. Who but the villichi could ever accept and

understand a tribe of one? And who but the villichi could properly develop his potential? You may leave him

with us, and I shall personally see to his care. But... what of the tigone?"

"The beast is psionically bonded to him," Lyra said. 'It is his protector. Some part of him communicates

with it. Such a bond is rare and must not be broken." "But as the boy grows, so shall the cub," said the high

mistress. "Even when young, a tigone is dangerous. When full-grown, even I shall not be able to control it."

"So long as no one threatens or mistreats the boy, you need have no fear of the tigone," Lyra said.

"However, I would suggest that you do not attempt to feed it. Allow it to roam free outside the temple

grounds at night and hunt for its food, as it was meant to do. It shall always return to the boy, and it will

accept those at the temple as members of his 'pack' and guard them as it does the boy."

"I shall defer to your wisdom in such matters, Elder Al'Kali," the high mistress said. "What is the boy's

name?"

Lyra shook her head. "I do not know. I do not even know if he knows. He has not spoken a word

since I found him."

"We shall have to call him something," the high mistress said. She thought a moment. "We shall call

himSorak."

"An elvish word for a nomad who always travels alone," said Lyra with a smile. "It seems appropriate.

But then, he is no longer alone."

The high mistress shook her head. "He is a tribe of one, Elder Al'Kali. One who is also many. And for

that, I fear he shall always be alone."

Chapter One

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 vil-lichi 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 vil-lichi child

would be an unnecessary burden to him, and would usually possess psionic abilities rivaling his own.

Sometimes kindhearted masters took in vil-lichi 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 vil-lichi 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!"

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TheOutcastSIMONHAWKETRIBEOFONETRILOGYBookOneTRIBEOFONETRILOGY:SimonHawkeBookOneTheOutcastBookTwoTheSeekerBookThreeTheNomadSimonHawkebeganwritingattheageofsix,andthroughouthislife,neverwaveredfromthegoalofbecomingaprofessionalwriter.Alongtheway,heworkedasarockdrummer,afactoryworker,anFMdisc-jockey,ab...

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Simon Hawke - Dark Sun - Tribe of One 01 - The Outcast

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