"Simon Hawke - Dark Sun- Tribe Of One 02 - The Seeker" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawke Simon)

huddled in her cloak, her long, silvery white hair blowing gently in the breeze, and wondered when Sorak would return.
Or, perhaps more properly, she thought, the Ranger. Shortly before he had left the campsite, Sorak had fallen asleep,
and the Ranger had come out to take control of his body. She did not really know the Ranger very well, though she
had met him many times before. The Ranger was not much for words. He was a hunter and a tracker, an entity wise in
the lore of the mountain forests and desert tablelands.
The Ranger ate flesh, as did the other entities who made up Sorak's inner tribe. Sorak, like the villichi among whom he
was raised, was vegetarian. It was one of the many anomalies of his multiplicity. Though, unlike her, Sorak had not
been born villichi, he had been raised in the villichi convent and had adopted many of their ways. And, like all villichi,
he had sworn to follow the Way of the Druid and the Path of the Preserver.
Ryana recalled the day when Sorak had been brought to the convent by the pyreen elder, who had found him half
dead in the desert. He had been cast out of his tribe and left to die because he had been born a half-breed. Though the
human and demihu-man races of Athas frequently mixed, and half-breeds such as half-dwarves, half-giants, and
half-elves were not uncommon, Sorak was an elfling—perhaps the only one of his kind.
Elves and halflings were mortal enemies, and usu-ally killed one another on sight. Yet, somehow, an elf and a halfling
had mated to produce Sorak, giv-ing him the characteristics of both races. Halflings were small, though powerfully
built, while elves were extremely tall, lean and long-limbed. Sorak's proportions, a mixture of the two, were similar to
those of humans. In fact, at first glance, he looked completely human.
The differences were slight, though significant. His long black hair was thick and luxuriant, like a halfling's mane. His
eyes were deeply set and dark, with an unsettling, penetrating gaze, and like both elves and halflings, he could see in
the dark. His eyes had the same, catlike lambency that halfling eyes had in the darkness. His facial features had an
elvish cast, sharply pronounced, with high, prominent cheekbones; a sharp nose; a narrow, almost pointed chin; a
wide, sensual mouth; arched eyebrows; and pointed ears. And, like elves, he could grow no facial hair.
But as unique as his physical appearance was, his mental makeup was even more unusual. Sorak was a 'tribe of one.'
The condition was exceedingly rare, and so far as Ryana knew, only the villichi truly under-stood it. She knew of least
two cases that had occurred among villichi, though neither during her lifetime. Both priestesses who had been so
afflicted had kept extensive journals, and as a girl, Ryana had studied them in the temple library, the better to
understand her friend.
She had been only six years old when Sorak had been brought to the villichi convent, and he had been approximately
the same age. He had no memory of his past, the time before he was cast out into the desert, so he himself did not
know how old he was. The trauma of his experience had not only wiped out his memories, it had divided his mind in
such a way that he now pos-sessed at least a dozen different personalities, each with its own unique attributes, not the
least of which were powerful psionic powers.
Before Sorak came, there had never been a male in residence at the villichi convent. The villichi were a female sect, not
only by choice, but by accident of birth, as well. Villichi, too, were rare, though not as uncom-mon as tribes of one.
Only human females were born villichi, though no one knew why. They were a muta-tion, marked by such physical
characteristics as their unusual height and slenderness, their fairness, and their elongated necks and limbs. In terms of
their phys-ical proportions, they had more in common with elves than humans, though elves were taller still. But what
truly made them different was that they were born with fully developed psionic abilities. Whereas most humans and
many demihumans had a latent potential for at least one psionic power, it usually took many years of training under a
psionicist, a master of the Way, to bring it out. Villichi children were born with it in full flower.
Ryana was short for a villichi, though at almost six feet, she was still tall for a human female, and her pro-portions were
closer to the human norm. The only thing that marked her as different was her silvery white hair, like that of an albino.
Her eyes were a striking, bright emerald green, and her skin was so fair as to be almost translucent. Like all villichi, she
burned easily in the hot Athasian sun if she was not careful.
Her parents were poor and already had four other children when she was born. Things had been hard enough for them
without an infant who tossed house-hold objects around with the power of her mind whenever she was feeling hungry
or cranky. When a villichi priestess on pilgrimage had come to their small village, they had been relieved to surrender
the custody of their troublesome psionic child to an order devoted to the proper care, nurturing, and training of others
like her.
Sorak's situation had been different. Not only was he a male, which was bad enough, he was not even human. His