“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.”
1
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 villichi 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 villichi child would be an unnecessary burden to him, and would usually possess psionic abilities rivaling his own. Sometimes kindhearted masters took in villichi 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?”