by Terry Persun
“The Lost is poorly named. My home is as alive as this place, but as different as it could be. Rocks grow instead of trees. The flowers are pointed, bristled with danger and poison – some of them. The game doesn't always have fur like here. There are cold-bloods everywhere, and insects that bite and leave huge welts on your arms and legs.”
“Why would anyone live there?” she asked.
Surprising them both, Raik spoke to answer her. “It's wide, filled with sky. There is little humidity.” He looked into the air over the fire. “There are as many b-browns and reds in The Lost as there are greens and yellows here. A different b-beauty, b-but beauty just the same.” Raik lowered his gaze to meet Lankor's eyes. “Does that explain it?”
Lankor nodded. “If you own a dragon as beast image, I am afraid I do not recognize you. But, my little friend, you have stated the truth about my land.”
“Not a dragon,” Raik said. “I've traveled to a lot of places. Training. All over The Great Land and well into The Shallows, even on the Sea.”
“The Flande Chain?” Zimp asked.
“The Cold Chain and the Warm Chain of Flande, yes. And the Sealands. I've been north to the Harsh Seas beyond The Lost.” Raik lowered his eyes and looked into hers.
“The noise has subsided,” Zimp said turning to look away. “I wonder if Brok and Therin will be back soon.”
Lankor began to rise. “I'll check.”
“No, you won't. What do you think those angry wolves would do to your human image?” Zimp said.
“I can fight them,” Lankor said, but his action was to sit back down.
“I know, big boy, but you'll have to wait to show off. It's Brok's night to be free.”
“I hate waiting,” Lankor said.
Raik sat upright, pulled a dagger from his boot, and began to scratch into the dirt near his leg. “That is what will make you a b-bad warrior,” he said to Lankor. “Hammadin was smart not to p-put you in charge. Your lack of patience would be harmful to the rest of us. I could train you to hold back for the right moment.”
“You can't kill in any battle by holding back,” Lankor said.
“And what experience have you got?” Zimp said.
Lankor remained quiet.
“Exactly,” she said. “You might do well to listen to Raik.”
A rustle from the edge of the woods brought two scuffed-up and bloodied thylacines into camp.
Zimp had to focus to see which was Brok. As she did so, the beast image on the right began its metamorphosis into human form. The jowls shriveled first, which disgusted her, and she turned her head.
Lankor pointed for Zimp to continue looking. “Shifting happens both ways. This is an honor.”
He was right. Brok could have shifted in the woods and stepped into camp in human image, but he chose not to. Zimp began to stand again, but Lankor placed a heavy hand on her forearm and she sat back down and just watched as Brok shifted. His tail shrunk. His stripes faded. As his paws became hands he began shaking his head again. Zimp wondered if there was much pain involved in his transformation.
Brok coughed a few times, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and stood to his full height. “Thank you for leaving us alone,” he said.
Zimp recognized Brok's sincerity. “No real help to send you.”
“We f-figured you'd let us know if you needed us,” Raik said. His easy tone was that of confidence. Zimp recognized that Raik would be the first to know if help was needed.
Therin sat and looked up at his brother. His black eyes were a doorway into the dark of the night. He cocked his head. Brok put his hand down and Therin stood and placed his muzzle into his brother's open palm. Brok smiled and stroked Therin's nose. “They didn't have a chance.”
Zimp's stomach turned at the thought of what Brok and Therin could do to a wolf once it was caught in those huge jaws.
Lankor broke the silence when he said, “Who's next, Captain?”
Brok pointed at Zimp. “I've seen your kind, but have not seen you change. You had might as well give us intimate knowledge.”
Zimp hated the idea of being intimate with Brok or Lankor on any level. The idea that she could see Brok's beast image any time she chose to was enough for one night. Now, to let him see into her? That felt disgusting. “I'll wait, thank you.”
Brok turned his attention to Raik. “Would you like us to guess?”
“Y-you couldn't,” he said.
“What are you nervous about?” Brok said.
“Leave him alone,” Zimp said. Her feelings toward Raik had not yet jelled. She knew so little about him.
“I'm not doing anything. I'm only asking.” Brok picked up a twig and threw it into the flames.
Regardless of his stutter, Zimp saw that Raik didn't appear to be bothered by Brok the way that she was. She felt out of control in the situation and didn't know why. Brok, having just come out of beast image, could be throwing his weight around: one battle won, another underfoot? She didn't want to believe that, but that's what occurred to her. “Do what you want, Raik. There is no pressure to change.”
“Except that you said we'd do it tonight,” Brok said. “Are you changing your mind?” Brok leaned in closer to the fire. He kneeled and sighed. “The doublesight are being destroyed. There are more attacks every day. The Council sent us on a mission. You know that we need to be able to sense one another's beast image or human image in order to work together efficiently, right, Captain?” Brok said to Zimp. “We may find more trouble than just humans on the rampage against doublesight, you know. There are doublesight all over The Great Land who are fanatics about their power to shift. They believe only in their own clan. They would be happy to help the humans rid them of predators, for instance. It may have been a wolf image clan who killed my family.”
“Is that what you think? Is that why you and Therin attacked those wolves tonight?” Zimp questioned. Night birds hooted and sang as though calling to her.
“He's right. Has this not been part of your lesson in history?” Lankor said. “Why else would the dragon clan stay hidden to this day?” His statement was delivered in an even, quiet tone.
“The Few knew about the clan,” Raik said.
“And many of the Council members. Oro,” Zimp said.
“You have been isolated long enough,” Raik said. “I'm sure you've been taught your own history, your own life story. What the doublesight did in the past was done out of fear of power. We are no longer in the past. If The Few knew about you, the existence of dragons should have been out in the open long ago.”
“The existence of dragons,” Lankor said. “You make it sound unbelievable. I know nothing else but the existence of dragons. I had never even seen a thylacine.” He looked from Brok to Zimp. “How can I be of help to anyone?”
Zimp sensed his desperation. She sensed that Lankor knew what his purpose was, and her heart went out to him. The four of them were to become a tight pack in their own right, yet they all knew that Lankor was there to battle for the rest of doublesight. He was the only one who could battle another dragon. She knew that Lankor was to be used as much for bait as for warfare.
Zimp gazed at Lankor. “Do you want to shift? It is time that we became our own party of five.” She included Therin.
“Six,” Brok said. “Your sister.”
Lankor and Raik sat up to look around. “Who?” Lankor said.
Zimp felt a gush of sadness and choked back a tear. She gave a brief explanation of her intuitive connection with Zora. “The rest is for another day,” she said. “Now, we are on a mission. No one else is here any longer. No one controls how we interact or operate. To truly become one we must separate from The Few and the Council of the Doublesight.”
“Here, here,” Brok stood. “I'm with you, Zimp. We are the ones in danger. It's time to make our own decisions.”
Zimp turned to Lankor. “So, would you honor us?”
Raik stood. “Please, you two. I know it can be good to change the ru
les, but I'm a military man in many respects. Can we not break the rules and stay true to them all at once?”
“How?” Brok said.
“Lankor shifts last.”
The emotion Zimp felt coming from Raik and his beliefs, the sadness from Lankor, the courage from Brok, all overwhelmed her and she burst into tears of affection for them all.
Brok gave her an odd look, but Raik took her tears in stride. Lankor reached out to her with a long arm and she let him wrap it around her.
“You are all so unbelievable. I had no idea,” she said.
“You do now,” Raik said. “Watch m-me.”
They all stood, and with tears streaking her cheeks, Zimp reached to the pile of twigs, branches, and dead logs that sat near the fire. She stuck the thin end of a short branch into the fire and it burst into flame. She raised it. “I don't remember what I said before,” she admitted.
Brok took a stick and plunged it into the fire. “Together we bring greater light and greater strength to one another,” he said.
“Thank you,” Zimp said as Brok touched his fire to hers.
“May my little friend show us his true self, knowing that we are his brothers, his family,” Lankor said as he, too, held a lighted branch to the others.
Their words were awkward, but Zimp cast that thought away. She knew that in their disjointed way each of them had been truer in their hearts than at any clan ceremony she could remember.
Raik suddenly looked unsure of himself. Zimp wished she could help him, but she waited. After all, it was Raik who had voiced the virtues of patience.
The thin, wiry body of Raik pulled into itself, forming a single tight muscle. His head squeezed into the shape of a triangle. His eyes closed and then opened to indicate vertically elliptical pupils. He fell heavily onto the ground. There came a series of loud cracks as if every bone in his back were breaking. It pained Zimp to listen to the sound. Then Raik literally snapped into the shape of a snake of enormous size. Almost eight feet of writhing muscle curled into striking position before their eyes. Raik raised his head into the air and swayed back and forth, his tongue flicking in and out, testing the air. His body color was between pink and brown, with reddish-brown cross bands that spread over his back in narrow strips that widened at his sides. His head color faded into a dull copper hue.
Zimp reached out and grasped Lankor's forearm. She was the weakest of them, the least terrifying. Brok was the oldest, Raik the best trained, and Lankor the most powerful. Why had The Few chosen her as leader?
The snake's head shifted, creating a threatening and horrifying image. This huge snake with Raik's head. But the snake image could not hold the human head for long. Shifting cannot stop mid-change. It can only be slowed. Raik's human head became heavy and fell with a loud thump onto the ground. There was no snapping sound this time, but for a moment Raik's human image appeared to have no bones in it at all. He flopped around and with difficulty sat upright. “Ahh,” he said, in what sounded like complete relief. “You,” he said to Zimp.
“I don't know.”
Brok threw his stick into the fire. He took the branch from her fingers. “It's all right. We're here. We'll hold the space for you.”
His words only made matters worse for her.
Lankor stepped away from her, threw his twig into the fire, and grabbed another stick from the pile, which he lighted and held into the air.
Raik picked up a stick, touched it to flame, and raised it above his head. “I acknowledge you as the leader of our band of warriors.” He seemed quiet as he spoke, his energy drained from his own change.
His words thrust through her with their sincerity and loyalty. They gave her courage. She stood tall and stepped back from them.
“I trust that you have been chosen as our leader for a reason that we do not have to understand. And, I too, accept you.” Brok placed his burning stick to Raik's.
Zimp, even in her heartfelt state of surprise, noticed Brok's delivery as being guarded. Did he feel slighted for not being named their leader?
Lankor echoed their sentiments and touched his fire to the others.
Zimp could not see what they saw. She could only feel herself become lighter. She saw them rise in her point of view, as she must have sunk to the ground. Often she leapt into change so that she could fly off, but here she must change with ease, before these three men who now knew more about her than she often knew of herself, if only they'd choose to gaze into her true nature. Zimp knew the moment she changed. She flapped her wings. The three men in front of her, their faces twisting in the light of the fire, were in black and white. She had but a memory of color. She hopped around to get farther from the heat of the flames, then shifted back into human image. She looked to her companions for support.
“B-beautifully d-done,” Raik said.
The ritual was repeated for Lankor. This time, he changed without anger, and Zimp recognized the difference. His dragon image was still frightening to look at, but softer at the same time. He appeared to have heart. That was the only way she could explain it. Like what she would expect from Breel, frightening, but with a softness, as well.
After he changed back into human form, the three others threw their flames into the fire, which grew higher and brighter than it had been when they began their exposures.
The four of them came together and hugged one another. Therin rushed over as well, and for the first time, Zimp kneeled down and pulled him close to her. Something had changed in the last hour, but she wasn't sure what it was. She felt naked and empowered at the same time. She felt love and sadness, courage and fear.
As they separated and moved to sit around the fire, Zimp sensed a further change in Raik. He appeared nervous and pained. Unsure. He sat for a moment, then crawled over to one of the larger packs and curled next to it.
“What is it?” Zimp asked.
Lankor and Brok must have noticed as well. Lankor began to get up to go over to Raik.
“There's something more you need to know,” Raik said in a quiet voice, a weakened whisper. “I lied.”
“About what?” Zimp gazed at him, opening to the image of a snake around him. “Oh, to the Gods be damned.”
Lankor stood still. “I don't understand. What happened to the image? Where is the snake?”
24
THE IMAGE WAS GONE from Raik. His aura appeared shapeless.
Lankor refused to step any closer to the man. “This makes no sense.” He tried harder to see Raik's beast image, but to no avail. A shiver went up his spine. He turned around and glared at Zimp. “What have we done here?”
Zimp did not speak.
Lankor looked from her to Brok, the elder of the group. A breeze spread over the ridge, shifting the firelight into snake-like shapes. A vast, cold, and earthen scent entered his nostrils.
Brok began to speak, then quit before a word could be formed.
Lankor urged him on, but Brok didn't proceed.
Raik lifted his head. He shook briefly then raised a hand toward them as if to keep them at a distance. “I'm sorry. I am not the warrior you believed I am. I can only cause harm to come to you.”
“What are you saying?” Lankor overcame his own reluctance to advance. Raik had tried to help him ride properly. Raik had been the only doublesight Lankor felt comfortable around. What could be so wrong? “Hammadin said that you would teach us to fight, and now you say that you cannot? Well, I'll tell you now that it doesn't matter. Hammadin is not with us. This night we have made our own pact.”
Raik curled into a tighter ball. “Y-you're scaring me.”
Zimp got up and stepped close enough to touch Lankor's shoulder and draw him away from the frightened Raik. She removed her red cloak, unfurled it, and kneeled to place it over Raik's shivering body.
“I lied,” he said. “That is what happens with me. I am no good. I can't fight. I am fearless and fearful, courageous and cowardly.”
Lankor heard Zimp whisper, “You are with friends. If we must
, we will protect you. We will teach you to become a warrior.”
Raik gritted his teeth and turned. Zimp's cloak fell away. “Will you keep them away?”
“They are your protectors as well,” she said. She motioned for Lankor to step back. She helped the small man to his feet.
His body appeared less coordinated, jerky in its movements. The fluidity of the snake was gone.
Raik stumbled closer to the fire while gripping Zimp's hand. His eyes turned down and looked away from Lankor and Brok.
“We have given you a promise of our allegiance,” she said. “Trust in that.”
Raik nodded reluctantly. He glared directly at Lankor and Brok as though he mistrusted them. His lips shivered and grew whiskers. His hands fidgeted, thinned, and shortened. He shifted more quickly, as though he were afraid to stay human any longer.
Lankor immediately fell to his knees and tried with all his will to be small and harmless.
The small, adult mouse that sat before them shook in its own fur, its tail twitching.
As Zimp lifted it into her hands, the mouse stepped forward and rose on its haunches as though ready to fight.
Lankor spoke to him. “You are safe, my little friend.” Almost before he finished his words, Raik began to shift back into human image. Zimp set him down quickly.
Sitting next to their crow leader, Raik lifted his head and spread his arms open in a bold motion.
Around him, like a haze of transparent matter, moved the copper head. Raik stood. “Do you see now what I am?” Angry with himself, he rushed toward the other men, then stopped short and lowered his head. “I am a freak of nature. I am at once the prey and the predator.”
“How is this so?” Lankor asked.
“I don't know,” Raik said. “My parents have tried to rationalize it by suggesting that I am a throwback from a bygone era. That the ability to shift into any animal was still in our heritage.”
“Any animal?” Zimp asked from behind him.
“Only two. The two you've seen. I couldn't stand any more than that.”