Simon Hawke - The Outcast

“I shall,” said Sorak. “What must I do when I reach Tyr?”

“You must try to make contact with the Veiled Alliance,” Lyra said. “This will not be easy. Kalak is dead, “Tithian is gone, and the power of the templars has been broken, but those who make up the Veiled Alliance have seen the power shift too many times to come out into the open. They will be on their guard. Remember, they will have no reason to trust you. For all they know, you could be a spy sent to infiltrate their covert network. They shall not welcome you with open arms. Expect to be sorely tested.”

Sorak sighed. “It all sounds so very different from the life that I have known.”

“It is very different,” Lyra agreed. “But if you seek answers to your questions and a purpose to your life, you must be prepared for new experiences. In many ways, you are better prepared than most, for you have trained and schooled in the arts of combat and psionics. But you will find that it is a very different matter to put that training to good use in the outside world. Tread softly and think carefully.? “I shall,” said Sorak. “Will I be seeing you again?” Lyra smiled. “Perhaps. If not, then you know where you may find me—each year at this time. And if I should fail to make my yearly pilgrimage, then you will know I have passed on.”

“I want to thank you for your help, and for your kindness to me,” Sorak said. “I owe you my life. That is something I shall never forget. If there is ever anything that I can do for you—”

“Succeed in your quest and follow the Path of the Preserver,” Lyra said. “That is all I ask. Do that, and I shall be well repaid.”

“I only wish there were something more I could do,” said Sorak. He turned and reached for his pack, opened it, and rummaged around inside. “I know it is not much, a small thing, really, but save for Galdra, it is the only thing I have of value. There was a girl back at the convent, someone very special to me, and... well, when she used to brush her hair, I would take the stray strands from her brush to plait into a cord. She never knew, and I had thought to... well, that is not important. It is all I really have to give, and I would be honored if you would accept it.”

He found the cord plaited from Ryana’s hair and took it from the pack, then turned to offer it to Lyra. “Consider it a token of my...” His voice trailed off. The pyreen was no longer there. He glanced around quickly, but there was no sign of her. And then he looked out over the lake and saw a small wind funnel skimming over the water’s surface, receding rapidly into the distance.

“Keep it, Sorak,” Lyra called back to him, psionically. “I know what it means to you. The offer in itself is a gift that I shall always treasure.”

And then she was gone.

Sorak glanced down at the thin, tightly plaited cord he’d braided from stray locks of Ryana’s hair. She belonged to his past now. He had wanted to give something to Lyra, and this was all he had that he truly valued. All he had left of the life that he had left behind, and of his dreams about what might have been. Galdra, the sword of elvish kings, represented what yet might be. One talisman for the past, one for the future. It was fitting.

He tied the plaited cord around his neck.

The old castle ruins stood on a scrubby ridge in the lower foothills, a thousand feet above the valley and the city of Tyr. As Sorak made his way down the mountain trail, heading toward the ridge where the ruins stood, he could see the sprawling city in the valley below. To the west, beyond the city, lay the Great Sand Wastes of the desert, crossed by caravan routes that connected Tyr with the other cities of the tablelands. From Tyr, one route led toward the merchant village of Altaruk, across the desert to the southwest, at the tip of the Estuary of the Forked Tongue. To the west of Altaruk, the route then curved along the southern shore of the estuary, toward the city of Balk.

Another trade route led directly east from Tyr, branching off near a spring at the midpoint of the tablelands. One branch led north to the city of Urik, which lay near the vast depression known as the Dragon’s Bowl, then east, to the cities of Raam and Draj, beyond which lay the Sea of Silt. The other branch led south, back toward the Estuary of the Forked Tongue, where it branched off yet again, with one branch leading southeast, to Altaruk, and the other east, along the estuary’s northern shore, until it took a sharp turn to the north, through a verdant section at the northeastern boundary of the Great Ivory Plain, toward the Barrier Mountains and the cities of Gulg and Nibenay.

This much Sorak knew, but what he did not know would fill a book. In fact, it was from a book that he had learned the little he knew so far. He had found the book inside his pack, wrapped up in cloth tied with a piece of twine. His first thought had been that one of the others of the tribe had slipped it in there without his awareness, but that seemed unlikely, since he did not own any books, nor were any of the others likely to have taken one from the convent library. The personas each had their own idiosyncracies, but none of them were thieves. At least, not so far as he knew. Then it occurred to him that the only one who would have had a chance to slip the parcel down inside his pack was Sister Dyona, the old gatekeeper. She must have done it when they embraced, as he was leaving. This suspicion was confirmed when he unwrapped the parcel and found the book, together with a note from the gatekeeper. It read:

A small gift to help guide you on your journey. A more subtle weapon than your sword, but no less powerful, in its own way. Use it wisely.

Affectionately, Dyona

There was no writing on the worn, hidebound cover of the book, but on the first of its parchment leaf pages was written the title, The Wanderer’s Journal. The author, presumably the Wanderer of the title, was not identified in any other way. Sorak had never been much interested in reading. His lessons every day back at the convent had given him a distaste for it, and after struggling through old scholarly texts on psionics and the long, rambling, poetic passages of the ancient druidic and elvish writings, he could not understand why anyone would want to read in his spare time. He had always studied his lessons dutifully, but much preferred spending his hours in weapons practice or out in the woods with Tigra and Ryana, or on extended field trips with the older sisters of the convent. Whether in the mountains or the foothills or the empty stretches of desert far to the south of Tyr, Sorak preferred learning firsthand about Athasian flora and fauna.

Now, he realized that he was heading out into a world about which he knew very little, and he understood the value of Dyona’s gift. The journal opened with the words:

I live in a world of fire and sand. The crimson sun scorches the life from anything that crawls or flies, and storms of sand scour the foliage from the barren ground. Lightning strikes from the cloudless sky, and peals of thunder roll unexplained across the vast tablelands. Even the wind, dry and searing as a kiln, can kill a man with thirst.

This is a land of blood and dust, where tribes of feral elves sweep out of the salt plains to plunder lonely caravans, mysterious singing winds call men to slow suffocation in a Sea of Silt, and legions of slaves clash over a few bushels of moldering grain. The dragon despoils entire cities, while selfish kings squander their armies raising gaudy palaces and garish tombs..

This is my home, Athas. It is an arid and bleak place, a wasteland with a handful of austere cities clinging precariously to a few scattered oases. It is a brutal and savage land, beset by political strife and monstrous abominations, where life is grim and short.