Doublesight (22 page)

“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.”

“How does it work? Why can't I see the mouse image?” Lankor said.

“You will see it when it is time for the mouse to emerge. Now that you've seen both shifts.”

Brok shook his head and turned to walk away. “I don't understand this.”

“Wait,” Zimp said, “let us hear him out.” She turned to Raik. “Go on.”

Brok crossed his legs and sat down, raising his chin toward Raik. “Yes, do explain.” He leaned back on his arms, feigning relaxation.

Zimp shot him a glaring look.

Lankor felt curious about Raik and truly wanted to understand what had happened. He approached Raik with his hand out. Raik took Lankor's forearm and Lankor took Raik's forearm. They stood for a moment, shook once, and each put his free hand on the other's shoulder. Lankor disengaged and stood off to the side.

“B-Briefly,” Raik said. “I have two beast images, as you saw. I also have two human image p-personalities that go with them. I continually try to balance the two, but it's difficult. I alternate between the images as I s-shift. But that's not the bad p-part.”

“The bad part?” Lankor said.

“There is something about the timing of it all. If I am in snake image for several hours, then I must be in mouse image nearly as long before I can shift back into human form. And if I hold onto mouse image longer, which I can do, then I am forced to hold to snake image for a longer time. I am not so bound while in human image. Once human, I can shift at any time.”

“Impossible,” Brok said. “If that were true, the shift times would become longer and longer until you would be in beast image for years.”

“There is a realignment period. I don't understand that either.”

“How long?” Zimp asked the question on everyone's mind.

“A single day. After that, it's back to the beginning.”

“Sunset to sunset in beast image?” Lankor said.

Raik nodded. “I just completed a whole-day shift recently. That's how I was able to shift so quickly from one to the other.”

“But you can stay in beast image longer, can't you?”

“Oh, yes. Like the rest of you, I can stay in beast image for quite some time without remaining there. I don't know about you, but I can feel the pull back to human, at which time I must choose.”

“There is no such pull toward beast image?” Lankor asked.

Raik twisted his face into a look of questioning. “Is it so with you?”

Lankor looked around and realized that he was the only one who felt the pull toward beast image, another way in which he was different than his companions.

Zimp shook her head in answer to Lankor's unasked question. “I have a knowing that change needs to happen in order for me to hold my shifting ability. A knowing. Not a pull or an urge in any way.”

“Not me either,” Brok said. He nodded toward Lankor. “It must be a survival instinct,” Brok said. “Without it, dragon doublesight would disappear from The Great Land. Again.”

“There is a lot to learn here,” Zimp said.

Lankor noticed Brok becoming irritable. Perhaps there were too many oddities in their group, too many unfamiliar possibilities.

“Lankor's urges are up to him. They're his problem and affect us little,” Brok said. “But what are we supposed to do with a snake or a mouse for a whole day while waiting for him to shift back into human form?”

Zimp shook her head and paced a short distance away. Lankor watched her enter her own mind as though searching for something not yet whole. He wondered if she were talking with her sister. He wondered how that might work, and if it worked how it could help them on their journey.

Zimp raised a finger into the air. The blackness of forest behind her, her body haloed with blinking white-light insects made her look more magical than he felt she was in truth. So many things were happening that he did not understand, that he needed to remain open about. He stood in awe, his eyes wide, waiting for her to speak.

“We will learn to use this anomaly as a strategy. Perhaps we can sneak Raik into a dangerous city as a mouse.” She shook her finger and pierced Lankor's glare with her own, then turned that intense stare on Brok, who leaned back as though poked at. “Inside the city, then, Raik becomes the snake warrior and leads our forces.”

“Great,” Brok said. “What dangerous city? We are to gather information. The idea of us traveling together is so that we don't run into problems. We find the source of conflict and report back to The Few.”