“Screech,” Tigra replied.
“Screech?” Sorak shook his head. “I do not think Screech could have made the call alone.”
“Perhaps Kether,” said the Guardian, within his mind.
Sorak breathed in deeply, exhaled, and bit his lower lip. “But I do not know how to summon Kether.”
“Nor do I,” the Guardian replied, “and nor do any of the others. But perhaps if the need is present, and we all give way, Kether will manifest.”
“And if he does not?”
“Then I shall have to do my best and hope it is sufficient to the task,” the Guardian replied. “We are much closer to the summit of the peak now than we were out in the desert. The call will not have to travel nearly so far.”
“That is true,” said Sorak. “The Elder Al’Kali may hear you... if, indeed, she is still alive to make her pilgrimage. In either case, we shall have to get out of this wind.”
He was about to start walking in search of shelter but discovered that the Ranger had already set his feet in motion. The terrain was barren and rocky, and it was quite steep. He had to lean forward as he walked. The icy wind whipped at his hair and cloak and the rough ground made for slow progress, but by late afternoon, he had found a niche where a depression in the rocky mountainside was protected somewhat from the elements by several large boulders that had fallen from the heights above. He squeezed into the niche and set his pack down, then took a few sips of water from his bag, squirting some into Tigra’s mouth, as well. The tigone was more in its element here than he was, but even the great cats seldom strayed very far above the scrub ridge. It was cruel, inhospitable country, offering almost nothing in the way of game or forage. One thing was certain. He would not be able to remain here for very long.
“Why do we even have to remain here at all?” asked Eyron.
“We must wait for the Elder Al’Kali,” Sorak said.
“For what purpose?” Eyron replied dryly. “To dig up a past that no longer bears any relevance? What will you gain from knowing the answers to these pointless questions you keep fretting about?” “A sense of self, perhaps.” “I see. And you do not now have a sense of self? The ten years you have spent at the villichi convent have taught you nothing?”
“The villichi could not have taught me that which they never knew.” said Sorak.
“So you do not know who your parents are. So you do not know the name that you were given at birth. Are these things so important?” “They are to me, if not to you.” “And if you were to learn these things, what would they change? You have never gone by any other name than Sorak. Your true name, whatever it may be, would now sit upon you like an ill-fitting cloak. You have never known your parents. For all you know, they may no longer be alive. Even if they were, they would be strangers to you.”
“Perhaps, but if they still live, then I could seek them out. I am still their son. In that sense, we could never truly be strangers to one another.”
“Have you considered the possibility that they may have been the ones to cast you out? You may have been unwanted, a living reminder of their folly and indiscretion. They may have regretted what had occurred between them. You would be a painful memory come home to roost.”
“But if they were in love—” “That is merely your assumption, nothing more. Lacking any evidence to the contrary, it is just wishful thinking. Elves and halflings have always been mortal enemies. Your father’s tribe may have attacked your mother’s, and you may be the offspring of the pillage.” “I suppose that is possible,” said Sorak uncertainly. “Imagine a mother forced to bear the child of a hated enemy, one who had degraded and abused her. A child that could never be accepted by her tribe. A child that would be a constant reminder of her pain and humiliation. What could a mother feel for such a child?”
“I do not know,” said Sorak.
“Enough, Eyron,” said the Guardian. “Leave him alone.”
“I merely wish him to see all aspects of the question,” Eyron replied.
“And, as usual, you dwell upon the negative ones,” the Guardian said. “You have made your point. What you have said is, indeed, possible. It is also possible that a mother could love such a child, and hold him blameless for any violence that may have been committed upon her... assuming that it happened that way, and none of us have any way of knowing that. If she felt nothing for the child but loathing, why then did she keep it for so long? Sorak merely seeks the truth.”
“If Sorak seeks the truth, then he should know that the truth may not be pleasant,” Eyron said.
“I know that,” Sorak said.
“Then why stir up the murky waters of the past?” asked Eyron. “What does it matter? With each passing day, your life begins anew. It is yours to make of what you will”
“Ours, you mean,” said Sorak. “And perhaps therein lies the key to this debate. I am not afraid to learn the truth, Eyron, whether it brings happiness or pain. What about you?”
“I? Why should I be afraid?”
“That is a question only you can answer.” Sorak said. “The questions you have posed have already occurred to me. If they had not, I am sure you would have found some subtle way to make me think of them.” He smiled wryly. “Perhaps you already have, and are now merely seeking to drive home the point, to build on the uncertainty already present in my mind. Well, I shall not shrink from the task that I have set myself, even if it takes the rest of my life to see it through. Perhaps, Eyron, you find a certain measure of security in our ignorance of our past. Not I. If I am ever to know where I am going in this life, then I shall first have to learn where I have been. And who I was.”
“And what of who you are?” asked Eyron. “That is something I shall never truly know until I discover who I was and where I came from,” Sorak said.
“That which you are, that which we all are,” Eyron said, “was born out on the desert tablelands.”
“No, that was where we almost died,” said Sorak. “And if I do not find the child who lived before, then he truly will have died, and some part of all of us shall die, as well. Now heed the Guardian and let me be. I must clear my mind and attempt to summon Kether.”
Of all the entities making up the tribe, Kether was the most mysterious, and the one Sorak understood the least. With all the others, he could see how parts of his fragmented persona had developed from the seedlings of character traits into distinct, individual identities with personas of their own. The high mistress had helped him understand how the female side of him, that female side that was present in every male, had fragmented and developed into the three individual female personas of the tribe. The Guardian encompassed his empathic, protective, and nurturing aspects. Kivara had developed from his sensual nature, which explained her passion and her curiosity and her apparent lack of concern for any sort of morality. The Watcher encompassed his alert, intuitive self and desire for security.
Among his male aspects, the Ranger represented an outgrowth of his pragmatic nature and his motivating force, as well as the inherited characteristics of his elf and halfling forebears. Lyric was his humorous, creative side, the playful child within him who took nothing very seriously and found innocent joy in everything around him. Eyron was the cynic and the pessimist, his negative aspect grown into a world-weary realist who weighed the pros and cons of everything and was wary of romantic optimism. Screech was an outgrowth of his halfling affinity toward beasts and other, lower creatures, a simple and uncomplicated aspect of his own animal nature. And the Shade was the dark, grim side of his subconscious, which manifested rarely, but with a frightening, primitive, and shockingly overwhelming force. There were at least three or four others who were deeply buried, such as his infant core. Sorak did not really know these personalities at all, but it was a lack of knowledge based on ignorance and not, as was the case with Kether, an inability to comprehend.