by IGMS
It must be a dog. It had to be. She knew it even before seeing it, the same way she knew that her heart was still beating.
But still, she had to see.
She slipped on the scree, and when she stood she felt blood run down her calf to pool warmly in her sock. The salt and iron smell of blood mixed with sea salt pricked at her nose. "Slow down," called Dingani, but she would not. Instead she began to crank the camera furiously, even though it was only capturing images of her boots as she ran.
Tale did not stop until she crested the hill, until she could see across the island to the other ridge. Not until she could see . . .
At once she raised the camera to her eye, hoping the film could make out what her eyes saw even in the dim light.
The dog was big - bigger than she'd expected, somehow. The reports described them in so many ways: bulky, petite, short-haired, long-haired; big as a quagga, small as a newborn pygmy wolf; black or white or brown or even gold.
This one was brown and red, streaked with black along its back half, with lean graceful limbs and a sturdy body, and an expressive sliver of tail like a crescent moon. It seemed to smile at her, to say, "Yes! Tale, I'm real!"
She took one step toward it, and the dog took a step too, as if they were magnets being drawn toward each other by every natural law. It was irrational, and yet, she loved that dog already, that foreign creature who could almost not be real.
And then: a sound like a faulty automobile engine, or the dog's bark, and the firm body toppled and curled in on itself. Halfway down the slope, a shadow that was Mosegi Steyn came into focus, and the moonlight glinted off the gun in his hand.
It was as though her arm had taken on a life of its own, and could not stop cranking.
"It's not dead," said Steyn, almost angry, when Tale reached him. He was bent over the dog, who was whining like a baby.
"My supplies are back at camp," Steyn continued. "We'll have to carry it."
He seemed reluctant to touch the beast he'd shot, so Tale shoved the camera into his hands and lifted the dog in her arms. She held it close, petting its head. She could feel the shape of its skull beneath her fingers; a strong skull, a strong body, losing strength.
In silence they slid back toward the beach. Dingani waited on the hilltop, his face tight, the skin around his eyes an angry red. He met Tale's gaze, but he would not look at what she carried.
Beneath their canopy, she sat down and held the panting creature in her lap, a slumping brown-and-black-and-red body. It could barely move.
Steyn, meanwhile, hauled out his traveling taxidermy kit. Tale thought of the Moa, mouldering away in its glass cage. She pet the dog's short, thick fur, and it whimpered. Her wandering fingers found a strange lump on its belly, and she prodded gently at it in the darkness.
"Is it dead yet?" Steyn asked. He sounded shy, almost apologetic. "It's in pain."
"She's not a dog," Tale breathed.
"What?" demanded Steyn, abandoning his work station. "No, look at it. The jaw, the eyes, the . . . the tail, that's what all the reports describe . . ." Even Dingani shuffled closer, though he still did not speak.
Tale's fingers, however, were now tucked into the soft fold of skin on the creature's belly. "She's a marsupial. She has a pouch." Her voice came out clear and cold, as if she were addressing a class whose term papers had not impressed her. "Every description of dogs - if there even is such a creature, places them in the family of canids."
Whether Steyn flinched away from her arctic tone or her blunt disdain, she did not know.
"Canids," she added, "do not have pouches."
The creature lay curled against her, like a child - she could tell from the size of the paws that it was not full grown. Gently, kindly, Tale ran her fingers along its muzzle, and it opened its jaws in response, much wider than she would have thought possible. One black eye winked dimly up at her.
She could picture it, propped up stiffly behind glass, with realistic bead-black eyes and a polished hardwood nose. Plaster shrubs and papier-mâché boulders would imitate the creature's natural environment - almost as if she were alive.
"Get me a needle," Tale said. "And thread."
"What -" began Steyn.
"Pharmacant," hissed Tale, "you will have your paper. You may have my film of this animal, whatever it is. You may take notes on its behavior, if it survives. But if she dies now, you have my word, Steyn, that I will stuff you too and make you part of the display. So I think you had better get me a needle, and you had better do it now."
Steyn jumped to obey her.
Although we were unable to produce material evidence of the creature's existence aside from a few scats gathered in the immediate vicinity, the length of the film clip and clarity of the picture should be sufficient to assure even the most devout skeptic that this is no hoax. To the critic I say: see with your own eyes. To the believer I say also: see with your own eyes. There is no other way to assure yourself of what I have been, at last, fortunate enough to witness. A creature of myth, a phantom from our collective childhood, indeed walks the surface of our fortunate planet. This is no mere velociraptor, no common dodo. This, friends and colleagues and staunch unbelievers, is legend come to life.
- from Letter on the Discovery of the Dog, Ph. Mosegi Steyn, 1936
Within three weeks of their return to Transvaal, Steyn published his paper, complete with photographs. "It will have only my name on it," he told her. "You owe me this."
Tale didn't argue.
One wall of the Transvaal Museum was cleared, and the film of the creature that was not a dog was projected upon it, endlessly. The Moa was shifted to a less prominent case, although in the end Steyn could not quite bear to throw it away.
Pharmacants came by the dozen to view the evidence. They demanded that the dog be produced, demanded hair samples and skin samples and shavings of its teeth.
"Alas," said Tale gravely, "the specimen could not be retrieved, to my great regret." The film stopped short - it ended abruptly, seconds before the gunshot.
The Pharmacants muttered; they watched the film closely and took copious notes; they shook Steyn's hand and bowed to Tale, and went away.
At night, when the museum was locked up safely, and all her lecture notes were organized, and all her papers graded, Tale de Kaant walked home to her empty two-room apartment, the same as she had always done; but now on the weekends she took a dray-pterodactyl coach into the Bush to a lean clay-dusted house. Dingani lived within, and the not-dog lived without, like shadows of each other, converging only when Tale arrived.
Each time she saw Tale the not-dog drew closer, regarding her with curious black eyes, edging nearer and nearer but unwilling to close the gap between them. The scar from the bullet wound was healing over; soon the ugly stitches could be removed.
Dingani had taken to calling the creature Thylacine. Tale called her Hondi.
"She loves you," claimed Dingani.
She forgives me, thought Tale, and sat still while Hondi wavered between curiosity and caution.
The expression Dingani wore when Tale visited was a mirror of Hondi's. Perhaps he too was learning to forgive her.
"Why did you give her such a silly name?" asked Tale.
Dingani, who was wrestling Hondi in the yard, grunted - the creature was always at ease with him. "You would not believe me."
Tale sat back on the spindly porch chair and sipped her coffee.
"I have no evidence for it."
She did not speak.
At last, Dingani rose to his feet; Hondi grumbled at his knees. "The more time I spend with her, the more I believe that was what they were called, in the other world."
"The other world." Tale put her coffee aside.
Dingani sat down in the chair next to hers. Hondi slid up at once to take her place between them, her body leaning toward Dingani, her eyes on Tale.
"Somewhere," said Dingani, "somewhere, there is a world full of things like dogs, and elephants, and . . . somet
imes, things like Hondi. And sometimes creatures die. Species go extinct. That's when we find them here."
"Hm," said Tale, who did not believe in alternate worlds, only the natural world in front of her. The silence lingered between them until she felt the need to fill it up with words, and questions always came most naturally to her. "And what happens when things go extinct here?"
Dingani shook his head. He did not answer. After an even longer silence, Hondi licked him with her wide pink tongue until he smiled again.
Tale got up to boil another pot of coffee - but she was just reaching for the doorknob when another question came to her. "Are there people in your other world, Dingani?"
He was patting Hondi's head; her eyes squeezed with pleasure, and she yawned hugely, her jaws spread almost impossibly wide. "There are people everywhere."
"They don't go extinct?"
Hondi laid her head on Dingani's lap and snuffled sleepily, and Tale felt a pinprick of jealousy.
"Everything dies," said Dingani. "But lost things know many ways of being found."
That was his Bush-dreamer's nonsense, of course, along with the rest of it. Dogs, elephants, earwigs, squid, mosquitoes, gemsbuck, starlings, all together alongside their otherworldly human counterparts - it was a fantasy story for dreamers and unschooled Bushmen and children still young enough to believe in folktales. Tale set the coffee on to boil and wondered if it was possible for a woman of science to love a man foolish enough to believe in such a place.
The Two Kingdoms Woman
by James Beamon
Artwork by Andres Mossa
* * *
Listen, Chiang Jiang, as I speak my life poem. Upon these words I wrap deeper spells, in the tao shown to me by Zhuge Kongming when he unveiled the mysteries of the Book of Changes, the divinations and secrets of I Ching. Seven is sacred, the auspicious number of togetherness, and so I hereby distill the many people I've met, the innumerable places I have seen to this counted few. Seven are the names I will divulge to you, mighty river, to bind them to your waters. I will couple these names with seven sites, places forever rooted though the boundaries of the Three Kingdoms will surely change. May you carry their meaning and memory forever.
Sun Renxian
A brat and a fool is Sun Renxian. Once so proud of her bloodline, she boasted her heritage to visiting dignitaries. "Sun Renxian, daughter of Sun Jian, son of Sun Zhong!" and so on, inviting the dignitary to listen as she traced her family line back seven centuries to the Spring and Summer Period and the great Sun Tzu. As a maiden she practiced wushu daily, learning five Southern styles, becoming skilled with the single-edge dao sword and double-edged jian. She was fierce in combat, even fiercer in her arrogance. Now, Renxian is tired. Pride has drained from her as water through a sieve. She seeks to restore her qi.
She is I, this woman dressed in her grandest silk, whose make-up runs, and presently sits on your banks to share with you her life poem.
Sun Quan
My older brother's smile warms the room as his decrees cut the heart. He is revered as King of Eastern Wu, Holder of the Nine Bestowments. To me, he is simply Zhongmou, left to rule when our father fell in battle and our older brother succumbed to an assassin's arrow nine years later. Zhongmou was only eighteen at the time, and I sixteen. I remember him holding me as I cried into his shoulder even as his own body racked with sobs.
Zhongmou's strength lay in listening and in knowing he could not do everything alone. He chose excellent advisors, many smart, dutiful men whom I cannot name because I promised to speak only seven. Now Zhongmou is forty-three, and Wu has grown strong under his hand. His eyes sparkle like jade, signal lanterns of the fire that fills him.
What else can be said of my brother? I loved him, then hated him.
Liu Bei
I used to always call him by his ming, stressing his given name slowly, deliberately, loudly, causing as much disrespect and shame as a woman of my status could. Liu Bei. I thought him a peasant turned warlord, not worthy of his own zi name. He was an upstart, a rival to my brother, an enemy to Wu. When I arrived in Gong'An, I carried my one hundred swordmaidens with me with the intent to harass his men and openly defy his wishes.
He was forty-seven, over twice my age, when I first met him. He had arms too long, where it looked like he could scratch his knees while standing straight and ears too big, as if they grew incrementally every time someone said something wonderful about him. "Oh, Master Liu Bei has the makings of an ambitious hero." "He has Tiger Generals, the greatest in all the land." "Only Master Liu Bei can restore the failing Han Dynasty." Comments like the last carried the implied, unspoken insult that even my brother would eventually bow to him. What import was it that the peasant was directly related to the Imperial line? This is a man who had taken half a lifetime to scratch out a small swath of territory, an undesirable who grew up selling wooden mats and shoes alongside his mother. I despised him all the more for the reverence in the eyes of others.
I hated him, then loved him. I suppose that is the way of many marriages.
A'dou
A'dou is a name which is neither his given ming nor courtesy zi, but it is nevertheless his name. He is Liu Bei's son, which by extension makes him my son as well. When I first met him, he was two years old with chubby cheeks of morning rose and bright eyes that were too busy looking at the world and everything in it to blink or close. I only wish the world he saw was pristine, unravaged by war and death and conquest.
I fell in love with him when I first saw him, when he held his arms out for me to pick him up as if my arms were where he had always belonged.
Zhao Yun
At the height of my war against my own wedding vows, when I sought to sow disorder and discord in the streets of Gong'An, the disciplinarian Zilong was my adversary. One of my husband's Five Tiger Generals, Zilong was the only one who did not tread carefully around me. Upholding the alliance between Liu Bei and Sun Quan mattered to him, just not as much as lawful order. Thoughts of what would happen to the alliance did not keep him from cracking my ribs when we fought in the marketplace.
I do not fault him. My swordmaidens and I had descended onto the trade district, harassing the vendors, overturning their tables and carts, demanding to know why they came here instead of Wu to hawk their wares.
Zilong appeared with what had to be twice as many men as I had women. Anger smoldered in his eyes and his lips shook with rage, making the long strands of his mustache and beard quiver. He called out to me.
"I respect your swordmaidens enough to approach them cautiously. How about you, Lady Sun of Wu, do you respect them enough to not throw their lives away needlessly? Will you face me?"
Perhaps I expected leniency given my station, but in our duel he showed none. This general was the survivor of a hundred battles and countless duels; my sword skill and wushu were no match for his. The duel was over quickly and decisively when he delivered a crushing kick to my side, sending me into a vendor's stall with a shower of wares and splintered wood.
As I lay there gasping for air -- my swordmaidens tending me, vendors gawking, his men smirking under their helmets -- I remember, through the pain shrieking in my chest, wanting to see the entire city burn for this insult. Embarrassment and rage flooded me.
"Do you know what this means to the alliance?!" I screamed at him.
"This?" he asked nonplussed. "It means nothing to a warrior. It means everything to spoiled girls."
After the healers applied their salves and bandages, and my chief swordmaiden asked about sending notice to my brother, I thought of Zilong's words and shook my head. I would damn myself to this existence before I proved him right. Oh! How I hated him. I bit my lip to keep from screaming.
In these days, with hindsight as my greatest teacher, I can only respect Zhao Yun for teaching me what a warrior is, something well beyond wushu and swordplay. I no longer doubt the stories ofhim, like the time he went behind enemy lines a thousand strong to rescue A'dou when Cao Cao cut off
Liu Bei's forces.
I know he has saved A'dou. For that, I can only love him.
Zhuge Liang
They say Kongming summoned favorable winds at Red Cliffs, a feat I do not question now. Back then, I did not believe. Instead, I wondered how my husband could appoint a man of twenty-eight years as his chief advisor. Then I saw what he was capable of, his quiet power. I started believing.
I had learned five Southern styles and one Northern one, discipline as a warrior, grace as a woman. I would learn magic.
Kongming did not protest or question, but nodded sagely as if he knew I would come to him all along. He taught me of fire gazing and water visions, life poems and death bindings. Because of him, I learned the meaning of numbers, their true value beyond simple arithmetic.
If nothing else, I name him because none of what I do tonight would be possible without his teachings.
Cao Cao
No talk of these trying times would be complete without mention of the devil Mengde. I am loath to name him, for to give him name deprives me of the joy of enriching your waters with the poem of someone honorable, beautiful. Even now Cao Cao, this dead man I have never met, robs me as he has ever robbed me.
His Kingdom of Wei stretches across the empire's heartlands and northern reaches, a tremendous shadow that falls across both Eastern Wu and Shu Han. That shadow creeps slowly, inexorably south.
Cao Cao knows war. He has massacred thousands, bringing city after city under his heel. Cao Cao knows power. He relocated the Imperial capital to his greatest stronghold. When he moves his hand, the boy emperor, last of the Han Dynasty, speaks exactly the words Cao Cao wishes.
I speak of him as if he is not dead, three years gone, expired in a soft bed far removed from the blood and carnage of battles at the age of sixty-five. His son now sits upon the throne of Cao Wei. The same devil fills him, a devil that officially usurped the Emperor's throne, ending the Han Dynasty.