Doublesight

by Terry Persun

  She rolled to her side. “Did you sleep well?”

  Oro sat with her legs on the floor. “I feel rejuvenated.”

  “That's better than how I feel.” Zimp stretched her arms. “That thylacine slept under the wagon all night.”

  Oro smiled. “What a comfort.”

  Voices that were at a distance and lost amidst the morning chirping came closer. Zimp recognized Brok's thick whisper. He and Breel appeared at the wagon's rear opening.

  “You're up,” Brok said. He did not wait for a response. “That favor. We are not far from our home. We would like to enact our own tradition and, while there, pick up some supplies and weapons. Can your clan guard the area while we are there?”

  Zimp looked to Oro who did not return her gaze. “Well, Grandmother?” Zimp said, urging a response.

  “I sense that you already have the answer to that question rising inside you, my dear.”

  Defiantly, Zimp turned to Brok and said, “No.”

  Brok raised his chin to let her know that he'd obey her words. He took a deep breath and swiveled on his heels to leave.

  “Wait,” Zimp yelled. She crawled to the rear of the wagon and swung out. She reached back and gripped her cloak. It fluttered almost weightless above the ground. “Your request is granted.” She felt her face redden. She didn't want to disappoint Oro. She glanced at her grandmother, who nodded approval. “I will let the camp know of my decision.”

  “Thank you,” Breel said. Brok took his sister's hand and led her away. Therin squeezed under the rear axle and followed them.

  Zimp turned to Oro. “This means that I've altered the plans for the entire clan. What will they think of such a decision?”

  “Your first answer to young Brok was weighted with the fear of change. How will the clan feel about you if you change their plans for the day? Your second answer bore the fruit of a true decision.” Oro reached for Zimp's help. “This morning we must perform an opening ceremony.”

  Zimp helped Oro from the wagon, then excused herself to find Noot. She decided to make him her personal courier.

  Breezes swept toward Brendern Eastlake as the sun pushed shadows across the dew-wet plain. “I am honored, my cousin,” Noot said after Zimp made her offer, “but shouldn't one of Arren's brothers be asked before me? Might they be angered by such a decision?”

  She wanted to wave his worries away with a sweep of her hand, tell him just to announce the new plan; but first she stopped, looked him square in the eye, and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I need someone I can trust. You are the one I choose.”

  It was obvious to Zimp that Noot was surprised by her strength and conviction. She alone knew how difficult those words were to force out. “Now, let each wagon know that we will perform a daybreak ceremony before we leave. Breakfast is to be eaten while we travel to the thylacine home, where we wait until the children of Fremlin perform a death ceremony for their family. Afterwards, we go to the conference grounds to arrive in early evening, if we are lucky.”

  “Some of the clan won't want to wait for the thylacines. Whether prejudice or hatred, grudges are still held from the time the doublesight fought one another. There are those who hold that thylacines are not to be trusted. Can those clan members go on ahead?”

  “That would be Arren's choice, regardless of the reasoning.” Zimp focused on the pressure she felt building inside her. She closed her eyes and willed the tingling in her face and ears to stop. “We act together. And we shall travel together. Oro must be the first to enter the conference grounds. We will need a driver for the remainder of the trip. You, Noot, after the thylacine ritual. Will your family be all right without you for the last hour or so of travel?”

  “It will be an honor to escort Oronice to The Few,” he said. With a shaky snicker and smile, Noot said, “I will break the news to the others.”

  The daybreak ceremony could be long or short, and often no one knew until Oro got started. She appeared near the edge of Brendern Forest. The entire clan except for scouts and guards stood before her. She motioned for the drums to begin, then one member of each of the seven wagons and one member of each of the walking clans began to chant a low mantra of their own. The combined sound could frighten wild animals with its low and scratchy resonance. The words, undecipherable and repeated, sounded like an incantation from a body of witches. Oro lifted her hands and each clan member sang out an individual mantra, raising the incantation to a dangerous level. Zimp spoke her own words and turned to face the sunrise. Oro chose not to speak that morning. The sound of voices rose, drowning out all other sound including that of the wind through the trees, the distant snort of buffalo, the chirping of birds. At a natural and familiar peak to the harmony all went silent, and the outer sounds rushed in with magical clarity. Zimp rose with the ceremony like never before and now felt the power that it created, felt the strength in their numbers.

  Oro's voice and movements appeared to be stronger this morning.

  The clan members rushed back to their wagons talking among themselves.

  Arren stood outside the ring of sound and glared at Zimp. He stood, an arrogant pillar, in her peripheral vision. She turned away and held Oro's arm to help her return to the wagon. Zimp twisted around and looked to see if Arren had left, but he stood firm. He waved and smiled when she looked at him. The sneer on his face was gone, but she still saw it in her memory.

  11

  THE WAGONS STAYED TO THE WIDER ROAD through the forest. Some of the walking clans spread to parallel paths worn visible by animals or hunters. Once the caravan got close to the thylacines’ home, Brok indicated a place where the crow clan might wait. He heard Zimp speaking with one of the scouts who brought news of strange happenings in some of the smaller villages. Bands of assassins were on the move. Some appeared to look like soldiers from various borderlands.

  “I do not wish to place your clan in any danger,” Brok told Zimp. “We can do this alone if you would like to continue toward the council grounds. We can easily catch up.”

  “You make this very difficult for me,” she said. “Oro is right. The decision has already been made and it is the right one. I can't leave you three here and vulnerable. Five of us will go with you so that you can perform your tradition in peace. The others will wait with Noot and Oro.”

  Noot stood by her side. “I'll sit with Oro in my family's wagon.”

  “You may not wish to watch our ceremony,” Brok said.

  Zimp told Noot to gather Arren and two of his brothers, Dail and Felter. Arren's other brother, Kal, could stay with their families. The fifth member of Zimp's troop would be Storret, the scout who had brought the warnings.

  Brok led his sister and brother into a dense part of the woods. A narrow path opened up and the three of them moved along it single file, followed closely by the five crow clan members.

  No one spoke. A few hundred yards down the path, Brok turned to Therin and bent down to receive a wet nuzzle from his brother. “Hey, Therin, listen.” Brok held his brother's head between his hands. “Go see if it's safe. Let me know, all right, Therin? Let me know.” He released his brother to run ahead.

  “I hate that we have to talk with him that way,” Breel said.

  “So do I, but I don't know how conscious his human mind is. Until we settle into camp at the council grounds, it will be difficult to test.”

  “He's better than we think,” Breel said.

  Brok accepted her assurance. “I believe you.”

  The party took a few more steps before they heard the terrible sound of growling and barking. Brok recognized Therin's cough-like bark and leaped into action. He made a quick turn off the path to be out of view. Several strides and he slipped into the mindset of a thylacine. Several more and his body tumbled onto the ground partially shifted and uncoordinated at first, but soon he ran like a cat. Brok burst onto the scene just behind Therin.

  A female cougar squealed out its wild cry, standing near the bodies of Fremlin, Lina, Keena, and Rem.
Two younger cougars flanked the first.

  Brok noticed that part of his mother's leg had been eaten. The bodies had been dragged closer together. His father's head appeared to be missing, but as soon as Brok noticed, he immediately pushed the thought aside. He could smell that the cougars were afraid. He and his brother curved their bodies away from one another and stepped around the dead at an angle. The two smaller cougars retreated closer to the female, their mother. Breel, now in thylacine-image, broke through the underbrush, growled from deep in her throat, and crouched on her legs ready to attack.

  The mother cougar fought against her fear. The scent of open flesh appeared to strengthen her commitment. Blood stained her muzzle and the muzzles of her young.

  Brok waited for the mother's tense and ready muscles to relax.

  There.

  He leapt over the human bodies as if they were not present. The mother cougar toppled backwards from his weight as he bit deeply into her shoulder. The mother rolled and tucked her legs under her and propelled Brok off her. He righted himself, created powerful springs from his bent legs and leaped back onto her before she could gain balance. Another bite, this time closer to her neck. His wide jowls and enormous gape were almost lethal as they closed down. The cat let out a squeal and scratched at his belly and foreleg. Claws penetrated his skin, but he held on. The weight of another thylacine landed on the cougar and she went down. Brok let go of her neck and backed away. Breel had severed the cougar's backbone just behind the neck. Therin appeared next to his sister and helped her drag the animal into the woods and out of sight. They then returned for the smaller cougars.

  Brok bled from the shoulder. The wound was tender when he walked, but he regrouped with his siblings nose to nose. Immediately they rotated around, stepping sidewise in one direction for a complete revolution, then in the other direction for a complete revolution. At the finish, the three of them backed away. The two larger thylacines then crouched down as though they wished not to be seen.

  * * *

  Zimp had never witnessed thylacines in battle. It was as if they had no fear of death. The cougars didn't have a chance. An unbelievable power overcame the three doublesight and that power increased tenfold as they attacked simultaneously.

  She stood with her mouth open, and her arms crossed over her chest for protection. The almost audible pounding of her heart was noticeable in the pulsing veins of her neck. She wanted to, but could not, turn away.

  When Brok and his sister kneeled close to the ground, Zimp did the same. She motioned for the other crow clan to respect their privacy as well. Arren and his brothers turned their heads away. Storret looked at his own feet. Zimp could not see totally over the bodies that lay between her and the thylacines. She could not turn away. What she could see was a head lift up, and the ectoplasmic collapse of a thylacine nose, the clay-like flexibility of the reshaping of that material into a human face. She heard one of them cry out as the reshaping took place. When they rose from the ground, red soaked Brok's shirt, which hung in tatters along his side. He favored his left arm.

  Breel reached for him, but Brok stopped her. He whispered something that Zimp could not hear. The two of them entered the small cabin.

  Therin stayed behind. He sniffed around the bodies. He nuzzled his mother's cheek. He sat back and just stared at his dead family, his head turning back and forth as though he tried to remember them as human, and perhaps remember himself as human.

  There was something about the way in which Therin stared at his parents’ bodies that caused Zimp to want to cry. She could never understand what it must be like to be shocked into a permanent image.

  Brok and Breel came from the cabin with loaded packs. They dragged swords with them and their clothes bulged with additional items. They let all their items drop to the ground, and Breel stepped back inside and came out with a large carving knife in her hand. She approached the corpses and kneeled next to Fremlin's headless body, a grimace across her pale face.

  Brok reached inside the doorway and brought out a painted staff of many colors. On either end of the staff hung a strip of pelt that looked like it came from a thylacine. It was the same dark brown color with black stripes. In the center of the staff a silver-colored metal had been wrapped around the smooth wood. At either end of the silver ring, leather strips dangled down, bearing several blue and yellow beads knotted in place. Tied at the ends of each strip were feathers: hawk, owl, and crow. As Brok walked over to stand behind Breel, the beads attached to the leather strips clacked together.

  Therin sat upright next to Breel. Brok began to shake the sacred staff. He and Breel hummed and produced nonsensical sounds. “Na-na-nu-we. Lo-si-wa.”

  Zimp did not understand the words, but thought they may be from an older language. She could see that Brok's wounds seeped steadily as he shook the staff with both hands firmly clasped over the silver center. What she did not expect was when Breel placed the carving knife over her father's chest and dug it into the flesh, dragging it down as though she were going to gut him like a wild animal.

  Another cut across the corpse's chest and Breel set the knife aside, reached down with both hands, and separated the skin. She pulled out Fremlin's heart, which glistened in its own blood and juice whenever the sunlight fell on it directly.

  Zimp stepped backward into the woods and almost fell over a fallen tree. She regained her balance as she watched the gory ceremony proceed, unable to take her eyes off Breel's movements.

  Breel reached over the body to lay the heart on a stretch of clothing. She scooted around Fremlin's feet on her knees—a good choice, Zimp thought—and stopped next to her mother's body.

  Brok followed her movements and never stopped chanting or shaking the staff. Therin crawled alongside his sister and sat beside her once again.

  Breel used the knife to slit her mother's chest open and pull out the heart.

  Zimp wondered if the crossed cuts Breel made in her mother's chest had any meaning, or were merely to make the job easier.

  The two hearts sat together on the cloth. The ceremony was not repeated for the siblings.

  Zimp watched as the hearts were placed side by side.

  Breel stopped chanting.

  Brok continued to chant at an increased volume as he threw the staff high into the air where it turned slowly above him and dropped back into his hands. His face twitched with pain, but he held fast.

  Breel sliced through both hearts, creating three equally sized pieces of each mass. She separated the pairs then crouched close to the ground. Brok set the staff behind him on the ground and crouched down.

  Zimp knew they would shift and was afraid of what they would surely do next.

  As thylacines, the three stepped up to the cloth, sniffed, and reached out to eat their parents’ organs. When finished they stood back, heads arched toward the sky and whined. The sound dragged with it unexplainable sorrow and grief. The woods around them cracked with the pain. A small wind came up.

  Zimp found herself crying without knowing why. Was it the horrific tradition she had witnessed, or the sorrow that reached inside her, that entered her soul with the sound the thylacines made? She could not decipher or explain how she felt. Whatever the reason, she saw that Storret and Dail cried as well. She could not see Arren and wondered about his spirit. Did it go out to the thylacines? The crying filled her mouth with saliva and Zimp let it slip from her lips onto the ground. The feeling of her mouth filling again with moisture and the momentary thought of what just happened before her made her wish she could vomit. Why had she watched the ceremony through completion?

  When Breel and Brok regained their human image, Breel ran to the side and threw up. The hearts would remain with the thylacine image. Only her breakfast came out.

  Zimp envied Breel's ability to be disgusted by her own actions. It must have taken great control and power for Breel to remain in thylacine image throughout the ceremony.

  Brok lifted the sacred staff and shook it and sang one of hi
s chants. His face looked hard, like stone, and set with anger and fire behind his eyes. He walked back to the cabin and removed a long pouch from his pack. He slid the staff into the pouch and tied it at the top. He dragged both packs over to his sister and lifted one.

  Breel wiped her mouth and slid her arms through the straps. Brok kissed her head, a moment of vulnerability and tenderness, and turned to go back through the woods.

  “That was horrible and wonderful,” Storret said from behind Zimp.

  She stopped and stared at him, but didn't speak for a long time. “We'd better follow them back. Someone needs to tend to Brok's shoulder.”

  12

  ZIMP HEARD THE GUARDS CAWING, and pushed past Brok and Breel on the path to run ahead. Therin took to her heels and followed her, which made Zimp kick up her pace. After what she had just seen him do, she felt less comfortable with him in their camp.

  The clan scurried to get weapons and create a wall around the wagons. Zimp clasped the shoulder of the first person she ran into. Arealie was a distant cousin. She had a strong back and plain face. Reliable. Capable. “Take Brok to Oro. He's hurt.”

  Arealie handed a short sword to Zimp and reached for Brok, who was emerging from the woods. The woman kept her eye on Therin, Zimp noticed, and appeared very reluctant to actually touch Brok, but she did it anyway. Zimp was surprised that he let Arealie help him when he held his sister at bay.

  Breel followed close behind her brother until she reached Zimp. She stopped and asked, “How can I help?”

  “Stay with your brother. He may need the comfort of his family,” Zimp said.

  Breel glanced down at Therin. She looked around the camp at the crow clan. Another crow cawed a warning. “Forgive me. You are the host. But truthfully, I can outfight most of the men in this camp. My brother was not threatening you when he said that we could be dangerous. He was telling the truth.” Breel reached down to touch the hilt of her sword. The slender handle had been formed perfectly for her fingers, for her grip. The way she stroked it unsettled Zimp. Breel slipped the pack from her shoulder. “Have someone take my supplies.”