Doublesight (16 page)

“Why is that?” Lankor said.

Rend glanced back and forth between his sons standing together in the crowd. “It is no different here than at home. Privacy is respected. Seeing another's true self is a privilege not taken lightly. You know that.”

“Is it based on respect and privilege or fear?” Lankor said. “The bears showed themselves.”

Mianna turned to Lankor and grabbed his arm firmly. “Do not mock our ways. You've been taught all this. Why can't you stop agitating your father for once? As for the bears,” she said, “you may have been dreaming.”

“Is that what you think?” Lankor said.

Mianna squeezed her son's arm, hard.

“Yes, mother.” Lankor shrunk under his mother's stare.

Rend ignored their interaction. “We made it just in time. I understand they were going to begin the council meeting tonight whether we showed up or not. They expected us earlier, based on their sentinel's report on our position.”

“Do they know we came from The Lost?” Nayman asked.

“Many of them know,” Rend said as he led his family under the large tent.

*   *   *

Zimp had taken over for Brok so that he could be with his siblings. Standing near Oro, she noticed the tall family arrive and watched as her grandmother moved to hug the younger one who
rudely stepped away. At least the mother was kind to Oro, and the father appeared friendly enough. Zimp would have interfered had she not arrived late and still a little dazed from her dance.

She reached for Oro, and noticed that the older son of the last doublesight clan arrival had a disfigured foot. Perhaps he got hurt on the journey and that was why they were late. Too bad. Such a journey should be done with pleasure, not pain.

The tent filled with families Zimp recognized from the last few days of wandering the camp. The human, Brull, and his mixed doublesight were there. Had Oro not asked her to refrain, she would attempt to see their beast image. Now would be the perfect time to do so, with her heightened connection to the unseen realms. She waved to those she knew in an attempt to be friendly. She nodded and smiled to Breel, amused at how distant others stood from her and Therin. As Zimp scanned the group, she paused on the newest arrivals, who had stepped to the side to allow other families to enter. She nodded to them in welcome. Each acknowledged her except one, the youngest, who turned his head away as though he did not see her at all.

Zimp pulled at Oro's arm and edged closer to the latest arrivals, thinking she might find a way to teach the younger one a lesson. The four of them appeared to take up more room than other clans who stood close-knit. As she neared, she sensed a definite force, like an energy surge that surrounded the clan. Oro, though, didn't appear to notice.

The crowd quieted and on a platform built for the occasion, Hammadin, Wellock, and Crob, The Few, stepped up to speak.

Hammadin began, “We wish to apologize for our silence and absence. There has been much for us to consider and plan. We have heard that there have been mutterings this past week. Concerns about the rising attacks on the doublesight. Let us now verify your concerns.” He bowed to the rumbling crowd, then turned and acknowledged Wellock and Crob in the same way. They bowed in return.

Hammadin's voice rose above the crowd, “Many ages ago, all living creatures on The Great Land could mate and bear children. This freedom caused a horrible time in our history. We are reminded of our past at the temples in the cities. Statues of birds with crocodile heads stare out at us. Human torsos attached to the hind quarters of
a horse are still symbols in our skies.” He paused. “All nature of creatures were present in those times. Some were searched out for their strength, their ability to fly, their ability to breathe under water. Ultimately, as humans and beasts bred, they gave birth to horrible anomalies that could not live.” His voice rose as though appalled at what his own words were announcing. “Parents, horrified with what they had done, destroyed their own deformed children. Children killed their parents.” Hammadin breathed a great sigh. “The Great Land became a place of great sorrow.

“The Gods themselves became saddened and angry. They came down from the sky and ended inter-species mating because neither humans nor beasts of The Great Land took responsibility for their actions. Yet, in their kindness and compassion for all living creatures, the Gods allowed those who had been most responsible to be gifted with doublesight. Each human could choose one animal that best represented himself and his family. These chosen ones were then given the ability to shift.”

Zimp saw the young newcomer turn to his older brother. She heard him whisper, “We came all this way for a history lesson?”

The mother reached out and poked her son in the side. When he turned, she gave him a stern look to keep quiet.

Upon the stage, Wellock stepped forward and continued with the speech. “Even this gift was abused by many in the human race. Power and control became the order of the day. As oppression heightens, there is no other retribution but revolt and revolution. This history is taught to every doublesight to remind us of our duty to one another. You know that a long war rid the land of the most powerful doublesight. Gryphons, dragons, centaurs, gargoyles of all types were destroyed forever. With bloodletting comes more bloodletting, and even the doublesight turned against its own to hunt down and murder those most powerful beasts. They were wiped out for fear of their potential, not their choices. Another dark time in our past.” Wellock paused before going on. “We have reason to believe that perhaps this part of the history lesson is not true.”

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 rushed 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.”