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

arrival at the convent had stirred up a great deal of heated controversy. Varanna, the high mistress of the order, had
accepted him because he was both a tribe of one and gifted with incredible psionic powers, the strongest she had ever
encoun-tered. The other priestesses, however, had initially resented the presence of a male in their midst, and an
elfling male at that.
Even though he was just a child, they had protested. Males sought only to dominate women, they had argued, and
elves were notoriously duplicitous. As for halflings, not only were they feral flesh-eaters, they often ate human flesh
as well. Even if Sorak did not manifest any of those loathsome traits, the young villichi felt that the mere presence of a
male in the convent would be disruptive. Varanna had stood firm, however, insisting that though Sorak had not been
born villichi, he was nevertheless gifted with unusual psionic talent, as were they all. He was also a tribe of one, which
meant that without villichi train-ing to adapt him to his rare condition, he would have been doomed to a life of suffering
and, ultimately, insanity.
On the day Sorak was first brought to Ryana's resi-dence hall, the other young priestesses had all protested
vehemently. Ryana, alone, stood up for him. Looking back on it now, she was not sure she could remember why.
Perhaps it was because they were roughly the same age, and Ryana had no one else her age to be friends with at the
convent. Per-haps it was her own natural willfulness and rebel-liousness that had caused her to diverge from the
others and stand up for the young elfling, or perhaps it was because she had always felt alone and saw that he was
alone, too. Perhaps, even then, she had known somehow, on some deeply intuitive, subconscious level, that the two
of them were fated to be together.
He had seemed hurt, lost and alone, and her heart went out to him. He had no memory. He did not even know his own
name. The high mistress had named him Sorak, an elvish word used to describe a nomad who always walked alone.
Even then, Ryana had joined her-self to him, and they had grown up as brother and sis-ter. Ryana had always thought
she understood him better than anybody else. However, there were limits to her own understanding, as she had
discovered on the day, not very long ago, when she had announced her love to Sorak—and been rebuffed, because
several of Sorak's personalities were female, and could not love another woman.
She had first felt shock, and then humiliation, then anger at his never having told her, and then pain ... for him and for
his loneliness, for the unique and harsh realities of his existence. She had retired to the medita-tion chamber in the
tower of the temple to sort things out in her own mind, and when she came out again, it was only to learn that he had
left the convent.
She had blamed herself at first, thinking she had driven him away. But the high mistress had explained that, if anything,
she had only been the catalyst for a decision Sorak had been struggling to make for quite some time.
"I have always known that he would leave us one day," Mistress Varanna had said. "Nothing could have held him, not
even you, Ryana. Elves and halflings are wanderers. It is in their blood. And Sorak has other forces driving him, as
well. There are questions he hungers to have answered, and he cannot find those answers here."
"But I cannot believe that he would simply leave without even saying good-bye," Ryana had said.
Mistress Varanna had smiled. "He is an elfling. His emotions are not the same as ours. You, of all people,
ought to know that by now. You cannot expect him to act human."
"I know, but . . . It's just that ... I had always thought..."
"I understand," the high mistress had said in a sym-pathetic tone. "I have known how you felt about Sorak for quite
some time now. I could see it in your eyes. But the sort of partnership you hoped for was never meant to be, Ryana.
Sorak is an elfling and a tribe of one. You are villichi, and the villichi do not take mates."
"But there is nothing in our vows that prohibits it," Ryana had protested.
"Strictly speaking, no, there is not," the high mistress had agreed. "I will grant you that the interpretation of the vows
we take could certainly be argued on that point. But practically speaking, it would be folly. We cannot bear children.
Our psionic abilities and our training, to say nothing of our physical makeup, would threaten most males. It is not for
nothing that most of the priestesses choose celibacy."
"But Sorak is different," Ryana had protested, and the high mistress held up her hand to forestall any fur-ther
comment.
"I know what you are going to say," she said, "and I will not disagree. His psionic powers are the strongest I have yet
encountered. Not even I can penetrate his for-midable defenses. And since he is a half-breed, he may also be unable to
sire offspring. However, Sorak has certain unique problems that he may never be able to overcome. At best, he will