by Terry Persun
The crowd became still. Zimp noticed that some people looked frightened while others appeared curious.
Wellock nodded to Crob, whose turn it was to continue to address the expanded council. “It was during war that the life on The Great Land became separated. Fear of exposure, fear of the true self, and fear of the Gods turned individuals against their own natures. Choices were made. Some doublesight became beast-only, while others became human-only. The true doublesight diminished in number. Knowing the beast-image of an opponent puts one in a superior position to take advantage. Knowing the beast-image of a neighbor does the same.
“A great enough fear, a great enough depression, a great enough inner turmoil or confusion will force any living thing into a stable state where a doublesight in beast-image will remain a beast and a doublesight in human-image will remain a human.” Crob paused for a long moment. “Forever,” he said with disdain and force.
“During the dark war time, fear of the great beasts spread across the land, forcing many to make a single choice. Some say the Gods had a hand in this change as well, but somehow the doublesight lived through even this. We are few in number now.”
Zimp put her arm around Oro and leaned in to speak into her grandmother's ear. “They are not announcing a war, are they?”
Oro shook her head and shrugged her shoulders.
“But you have a feeling,” Zimp said.
Oro looked around them to point out to Zimp that she was disturbing others.
Hammadin said, “We have learned to live together as one, we doublesight.”
“And there are great things we must still learn from one another,” Wellock said.
And Crob put the story straight. “There is a great pressure to reject all doublesight in the land and to exterminate us by forcing us to choose singlesight. Or be killed,” he said. “We have reason to believe that one of the powerful clans have not died out, but are still living on The Great Land.”
Again the stirring of the crowd stopped.
Zimp heard the young clansman say to his brother, “We are back to the beginning again.”
Zimp saw that the mother and father of the clan to arrive last reached for each other. The mother then touched the shoulder of the nearest son, the oldest, the one with the hurt foot, while the other son took a step away from his family. She watched him closely out the corner of her eye, as he raised the hood of his gray cloak to hide his head.
Hammadin stepped forward again. “We have reason to believe that there is a rogue dragon in the land.”
The crowd began to mumble.
“Silence,” Hammadin shouted. “We don't know what is happening, but we do know that this beast is setting humans against the doublesight. We are already in small numbers.” He spoke louder to get over the din from the council gathering. “We still have allies among the humans. But they are few. And while we do, now is the time for us to find what is truly happening in our land and to stop the perpetrator. Care must be taken. All over the land humans are killing doublesight.” Wellock and Crob had their hands in the air to keep the crowd quiet. Hammadin went on to say, “We have taken days to select the search party. After this brief meeting, we will enter into the camps of the chosen ones. You will get special instructions and information. Tomorrow you set out.”
The young son turned to his father and sneered. Zimp heard him say, “We were supposed to be late, weren't we? An urgent message? A lie. The Few wished to make their selection before we arrived? To exclude us?”
The father turned his face away from the son and looked over at Oro and nodded to her. Oro appeared to know more that she had let on, as well, and Zimp felt anger rise inside her.
Hammadin held his arms high. “Silence!” The din decreased, but did not end. “Silence!” Another decrease. He spoke over the remaining whispers. “Return to your camps. We will send someone to collect our choices. All of doublesight is at risk and we must begin our quest soon.”
Zimp turned to Oro. “Will this be a suicide mission? Small attacks have been going on for years. They have recently increased. Our own clan…” She stopped.
Oro shook her head and shrugged, once again to avoid an answer, Zimp thought.
The crowd began to leave. Conversations resumed among individual families. Each intimate group appeared not to be cognizant of those nearby.
Zimp sensed a change in the dynamic of the new clan. When she looked toward them, the younger son hesitated while his family turned to leave. The boy faced The Few and purposefully walked toward the small stage.
As if he could feel a change coming, the father spun around to yell at his son. “Lankor, no.” The mother and older son turned around too. Several other clans nearby looked up to see what was going on.
The younger son, Lankor, untied his cloak. He lifted it quickly with both hands and threw it from his body, high into the air. Under the cloak, Lankor shifted. Zimp stared as his human form was projected with great force away from the beast forming beneath it. Shrugged off with violence, his human image arced behind him, an opaque, skin-only form that then fell weightless toward the ground as it became transparent, and then was gone.
Simultaneously, the young man's feet shifted into thin ugly appendages with four claws at the end of each. Lankor's arms cracked as they stretched twice their length and turned to gnarled bone, a double claw on the end of each, and thick, canvas-like wings with knuckled boney supports hanging in disarray below them. Lankor's face enlarged and crushed into a huge beak, sharp and curved like a predator. The sides of his face grew spikes, long bones in the position of whiskers. Then there emerged an armored and spiked tail, with a wide wing-like expanse several feet before its sharply pointed end. The tail wing, an evolutionary appendage used to stabilize his huge body while in flight.
Zimp held onto Oro, her arms wrapped around her grandmother to protect her.
The scent that emerged from the change reeked of the residue of fire, the strong smell of ash and burning flesh, as though he had burned his own body away, instead of merely discarding its image as Zimp knew she did when she shifted to her crow-image.
Lankor's head shook with a gross violence that allowed a thick mucous to scatter in all directions. He opened his mouth showing the bright red meat of his cheeks and tongue. For only a moment, he turned both wing claws in toward his face and stared at them as if he didn't believe the change, as if he had to be sure, reminded that he was no longer human but was now in dragon-image. It was a curious motion.
Zimp watched as the father grabbed hold of a tattered wing and Lankor turned on him. The older man stood his ground and shook his head back and forth in disapproval and appeared to reprimand his son like the rebellious young man he was.
Lankor looked beyond his father, though, to his mother. Then he looked over the heads of those in the room. He had grown to almost twice his original height and several times his width. His own head lowered and he appeared to implode. His mouth opened as though in pain, but no sound emerged. His dragon-image shriveled and shrunk smaller, as his human-image appeared to rebuild itself around the dragon's frame. He returned fully to his human-image with equal fanfare. He bent to pick up the cloak he had thrown off.
The closest clans encircled the dragon family as if to hold them at bay.
“Stop!” Hammadin stood with his hands out in a pleading gesture, his old body noticeably worn down from all his screaming. He spoke loudly, “An unfortunate display of anger. But I might say that I cannot blame him. These doublesight have been represented here for years. All you council members know Rend. He, and his family—in fact, all of his clan—are doublesight.” That was all he said.
Zimp watched as the hesitation of the clans around the dragons subsided with each council member acknowledging Rend and then turning to their own family showing acceptance. The Few had spoken. Those who had closed in on the dragon family parted to allow them to leave peaceably. The whispers of surprise began with fervor.
Oro pulled Zimp with her as she rus
hed over to Rend. “My friend,” she said. Rend, still holding the arm of his son, smiled at Oro. She reached for Rend's hand and he gave it willingly. She then reached for the mother's hand. “Mianna,” Oro said to her as she pulled Rend and Mianna's hands together where they clasped. “A word to you both?”
“Of course,” Rend said.
Zimp felt uneasy in the presence of the dragon family. Her initial reaction was to stand back, but her pride and her trust in Oro kept her in place. Zimp did grip Oro's shoulder in surprise when Oro reached up and touched Rend's cheek. “He not only has your look, dear friend, but he has your spirit. Remember how it was for you before you decide on his punishment.”
“I am angry at the moment,” Rend admitted. “I will wait to choose punishment, as you say.” He nodded. “But I will not wait to reprimand.”
Oro patted Rend on the shoulder, and to Zimp's pleasure, stepped away and let them pass.
“Cute act,” Zimp said to Lankor as they backed away. She looked above his head and could see the dragon image, like a fog around him. It stirred and she felt its power emerge. “I don't think this whole meeting was aimed at you,” she said, fighting the fear that shook her.
Once the dragon clan was out of the tent, Oro said, “You need to be reprimanded as well.”
“What did I do?” Zimp said.
“Agitate,” Oro said. “Unnecessarily.”
“I'm sorry, Grandmother. I didn't mean to upset you.”
“An unkind reaction to what happened,” Oro said.
Zimp said, “That shift into dragon was the most frightful thing I have ever seen.”
18
“YOU KNEW,” ZIMP SAID to her grandmother. “And if you knew, how many others have known about them for years? I can see why they were wiped out. They're frightening, arrogant, and they smell.”
Oro didn't answer. She kept her pace, Zimp holding to her arm, but being pulled along rather than helping her grandmother. Before they stepped into the clearing, Brok, Breel, and Therin appeared magically beside them.
Brok said, “I don't trust him.”
Oro dragged Zimp the last few feet to a stool that sat near the fire. She settled onto the stool and took several deep breaths. Zimp began to open her mouth and Oro raised her hand for silence. “No,” she said. Another breath or two and Oro pulled a small cloth from her shirt and wiped it across her forehead. She coughed into it, replaced it, and kept her hand in her pocket searching for something. She removed a candle.
Zimp recognized a flicker candle when she saw it. “What are you doing?”
Oro handed the candle to Zimp. “Light it.”
Storret flew into the clearing and hopped behind the wagon. In less time than it took Zimp to light the candle, Storret stepped around and into view.
Arren burst into the clearing followed by his three brothers. Several others from the crow clan entered the circle the firelight spread into the night air.
“This can't be true,” Arren said, “I just heard that—”
“It's true,” Zimp told him.
“We've got to do something. We can't let them—”
Oro stood and cut Arren off.
“You've known all along,” Arren said. “And you said nothing. What about the welfare of the clan?”
Oro's voice sounded thick and coarse when she spoke. “The dragon clan has suffered enough. Hundreds of years. They are doublesight and we will respect them like our brothers and sisters.”
“With respect, Oronice,” Storret said, “but didn't The Few suggest that it was a rogue dragon who might be behind the recent increase in doublesight killings?”
She looked at Storret with surprise.
“I listened from outside,” he said.
“Are there not rogue crow doublesight?” She turned to include Brok and his siblings, “And rogue thylacine?” Oro reached for the lighted candle. Dark red swirls curved around the candle's circumference and the flame appeared to change color at times. “This family, I assure you, is a friend to the doublesight. They are as horrified to find out about the rogue dragon as you are.”
“How can you say that when he did what he just did in there?” Brok said in a forceful and angry voice. “Could they be turning us over, one clan at a time?”
“Not this family,” Oro said.
“They won't help us,” Arren said. “If they did, they'd be helping to destroy their own existence. No doublesight can exist without both its animal and human counterpart.”
“He may be right,” Brok said.
“It is true.” Arren rushed in and slapped the candle from Oro's hand. Wax flew toward her face and she backed to get away from it, tripping and beginning to topple.
Breel leapt smoothly to the side and caught Oro before she could fall backward.
Zimp sidestepped the action, seeing that Breel needed no help. Instead, she clawed at Arren's hand a second too late.
Brok was quicker. He tackled Arren at the knees, bringing him down. The candle rolled away. Arren's brothers, with looks of shock on their faces, jumped onto Brok's back to pull him from Arren.
In a split second, Zimp glanced over at Oro, Breel's face next to her grandmother's cheek. Oro blew into the air. Zimp imagined that she could see her grandmother's breath in one long, thin stream of smoke, arriving just as Zimp inhaled. Something energetic coursed through her body. She didn't know what had just happened, but she knew what her duty was now. Her duty was to the greater clan of the doublesight. She fought the idea only long enough to be overwhelmed by the responsibility. “Enough!” Zimp allowed her body to straighten, no longer in movement, no longer reacting to the situation.
The brothers peeled off Brok.
Brok sat back onto the ground and rubbed his once-injured shoulder.
Arren stared defiantly into Zimp's face. “What do you think you can do for anyone? A shy girl does not shift into a warrior woman.” He spat on the ground.
“Remove him,” Zimp said.
Dail, Felter, and Kel helped their brother to stand and walked him into the woods toward his own wagon.
“Are you all right?” Zimp asked.
Brok nodded. “I could have handled it,” he said.
Zimp suddenly didn't know where her words came from but she said, “I did handle it.” She swung around and clasped Breel's forearm with her hand. She gripped firmly and reached around to embrace the girl. “You are a true friend to our clan. Your brother I'm beginning to tolerate,” she added with a slight smile.
Brok retrieved the candle. “What is this supposed to do?” He relit it from the fire.
“A prayer candle usually, but I don't recognize the color. What herb is this?” Zimp asked Oro.
“It is blood.”
Zimp stepped back. She had never heard of a prayer candle using blood. The crow clan didn't use blood in any ceremony. Without thinking she glanced over at Brok.
“Now that,” he said, “is ceremony I can understand.”
Breel had to laugh as she helped Oro sit near the fire.
Zimp set the lighted candle onto the ground.
Oro whispered a few private words over the candle. She threw cedar into the candle flames. “Join me,” she said.
The three thylacine doublesight, Zimp and Storret kneeled next to her. Other crow clan stood outside the clearing to witness the ceremony. Each would provide a blessing to the prayer, strength to whatever it was that Oro whispered into the flame.
Zimp jerked when the candle spit fire nuggets at them. It flickered weakly next to the campfire.
Oro threw a handful of leaves into the larger fire and it roared, flared up, and danced as though the wind had changed. “Speak after me, my children,” she said. “Let these days of peace.”
“Let these days of peace,” the group said.
“Stay true in our hearts.”
“Stay true in our hearts.”
“As battles before us.”
“As battles before us.”
“Plan to tear us apart.
”
Zimp looked over in surprise as she repeated the words along with the others. The candle spit again and a terrible odor rushed into the air. She wrinkled her nose.
“The doublesight must know,” Oro proceeded.
The chorus rushed like a wind behind her words.
“To protect one another.”
“To protect one another.”
“For the ability to shift.”
“For the ability to shift.”
“Dies with our brother.”
Brok raised his head and gave Zimp a look as though he didn't want to believe what Oro was saying, that as one clan dies out the rest become weaker. But he murmured the words as he was asked to do.
Therin whined and laid his head across Breel's leg. “Not you, Therin. You haven't caused any problems for us.” She scratched behind his ear and he nudged her leg as though he understood what had been said.
Oro reached out and snuffed the candle flame between her fingers.
“That smell,” Zimp said. “It's the same smell that he gave off.”
Oro took a deep breath. “Every time a dragon shifts they are burned by their own internal fires. It only happens from human image to dragon image. The return, I understand, is sweet and inviting. But then, instantly, the hunger for pain, the hunger for the dragon image returns.”
“He must have been angry,” Breel said.
“Frustrated. Perhaps hurt, would be my guess,” Oro said.
Brok stood and brushed leaves and pine needles from his pants. “The prayer. Is it true? Are we weakening every time another small family is killed?”
“The whole of doublesight is in danger,” Oro said.
Brull wandered into the clearing followed by two of his sons. “Life is not destroyed, only the doublesight. I'll tell you, being human-only is not so bad.”
“Brull. You might say it, but you do not believe it, my friend,” Oro said. “Even I can sense the longing inside you. That is why you married a doublesight, to be close to your hunger.”