by Meredith
You’ll discover that, Tsola said. And I gave you one additional gift, one that is the special ability of shamans. With practice, you will be able to see beyond illusion to truth.
Zeya nodded. He was overwhelmed, disoriented, discombobulated. The drums and rattles were screaming.
Tsola said, What would you like right now?
He told the drums and rattles to shut up, and they eased off. He settled himself down. “I’m alone. I’m thirsty. I probably should eat.”
Walk down to the stream and drink.
He looked at his airy perch, and no hands to hold on with.
You’ll find that panthers are more agile in steep, rocky places than people. Just go.
He leapt from his perch to the ground. His strength felt terrific. He flexed his claws. He would be a great hunter.
By the way, you don’t need to eat. No creature eats any other in this land—they are all immortal. You will never be dahzi. She chuckled. Good thing you left your old name behind, Hungry One.
Zeya pranced down toward the creek, thanking Klandagi for his body and its power. He leaped to the tops of outcroppings. He climbed high in a tree and viewed the world from a limb. He padded through the forest with the confidence that he was the most powerful beast of all. He let loose a roar and discovered that it was a bird’s screech.
Oh well. He chuckled at himself. His mother had always told him to know himself. Right now that was a little tricky, but fun. As he bent to drink from the creek, he heard a snarl from behind him. He looked back and heard yapping and growling sounds from the left. When he turned in that direction, the sounds came from the rear again. He put his back to the creek and swiveled his head, his panther body poised to spring, his eagle eyes able to pick out every detail of the forest.
Tsola’s drum sounded in his head.
Dogs, that’s what he heard. A pack of dogs with patches of every color, brown, black, liver, tawny, blood-red. Spotted, striped, brindled, they blended into the forest uncannily. He couldn’t tell how many, but there were lots. They jumped and crawled over each other like maggots on a corpse.
He shot his eyes in every direction for a tree. Bushes aplenty along the bank, but no sturdy limbs within leaping distance.
The snarls and growls rose to barks. The dogs crawled closer. They’re like leeches, he murmured to himself, dangerous leeches.
He considered getting behind them with one huge bound. Too far. The pack was like one big predator, constantly shaping and reshaping its mass, creeping ever closer.
An ice glob of fatalism formed in his chest. He’d always hated dogs.
Time to act.
As he sprang, he felt his bleakness undercut his strength. He landed in the middle of a whirling mass of canine attackers. He felt teeth tear at his legs and belly.
He bounded again, and the pain in his hindquarters screamed of dogs hanging by their teeth. He hit the ground running fast, but he had to slow down, twist, and shake off the dogs. As two fell off, others snapped onto him. He spotted a sturdy branch, leaped, and caught it with his forepaws. A gleam of hope powered him up.
Then he had to swing himself around to get rid of the brutes and their clamping teeth. Brutes, even if they were small. He raked one with a forepaw and watched the blood spray as it fell. He whacked another off with a backswing. He started to bite the third one before he remembered that he didn’t have panther jaws, only a yellow beak. He clutched the damn thing’s throat with his talon and squeezed until it let go. Then he kept on squeezing. When he dropped it, the cur fell like an empty skin.
He was safe. The dogs could snap all they wanted to, they could leap at him, they could make demonic noises, but he was above it all.
He decided to climb higher. When he raised his body, he discovered that he couldn’t push off his left rear leg. It was dead. He looked and saw that he’d been hamstrung.
I can climb anyway. With one back leg, two front legs, and his arms, he clawed his way up the oak to the highest branch that would bear his weight. There three of his panther legs curled under him, ready for action. The fourth dangled uselessly.
Tsola’s drum insisted on being heard.
He looked at the dogs. I can outlast you.
Can I really?
He told his head to shut up, laid his head on his forepaws, and watched the dogs. He wondered if they would go away in the darkness, or stay all night. He looked at the sun. Then he remembered. Tsola said the sun never arced across the sky in this world. It always sat on the rim of the mountains, rising. Was that possible? It hadn’t moved since he arrived.
He watched the dogs. They circled and snarled. The sun stretched out on the mountain ridges, brilliant silver, utterly still.
Zeya felt a new weight inside his strange body, a familiar one, despondency.
“Tsola,” he whispered.
No answer, but he heard the drum.
“Tsola!” he said louder.
Silence.
“Tsola, where are you?”
Nothing.
He wailed, “I am abandoned.”
Now desolation descended upon him. Needing company, he began to talk to himself. Dark is never going to come. The dogs are never going to go away. I can only hobble on three legs. I’ll never get away. I knew all along—I’m finished. I’ll never see Jemel again.
He put his head down on his front paws and closed his eyes.
Sleep didn’t come. Self-talk clattered at him. In a small boy’s tone he said, “I’m going to die of thirst up here. Or starve.”
Zeya said, “You can’t starve. Tsola said you’ll never be hungry in this land.”
“Well then, thirst to death,” said the little Dahzi voice. “Tsola has abandoned me.”
“You can hear her drum.”
No answer.
“Your mother gave you the gift of being calm, clear, and optimistic.”
Dahzi snickered.
“Why don’t you take a nap?” Zeya told Dahzi.
He realized he had never felt so tired. His body and spirit were buried under mountains of fear, despondency, despair.
He never knew how little or how much he slept. When his eyes opened, the sun was still rising. The dogs still paced and growled beneath the tree.
Tsola’s drum spoke to him. The young man once named Dahzi muttered, “Surrounded by death. How long before I’m eaten?”
Zeya said, “Why don’t you do something about it?”
Dahzi and Zeya both looked down through the same set of eyes.
“Do you know who you are?” said Zeya. “Use your gifts. Go down there calmly, clearly, expecting the best.”
Dahzi wasn’t sure. “I’m scared.”
“That’s the point.”
He rose up on three legs. “All right.” He wasn’t sure what he was doing as he climbed down, staying off his bad leg. Did he want to do his best and let it come out however it would? Or did he just yearn to get it over with?
As he got lower, the dogs barked louder and leapt higher up the trunk. He watched them from just out of reach. There was a clear pack leader, a one-eared, tawny female. The other dogs snarled, but they were watching her to see what to do.
Zeya felt a change in himself, a firmer heartbeat. I want to fight. It wasn’t a matter of winning or losing, but some other feeling.
He dangled a forepaw. A brown male with a white-tipped tail circled the paw at a distance. From time to time he glanced over at the leader. One-Ear kept aloof, watching.
White-Tip leapt, roaring.
Zeya swatted him away. The strength in his foreleg felt good, but he had to keep a tight grip with his one good back leg.
White-Tip tossed up a storm of barks, threw himself up again, and got the same result.
A split second later a black female let out a flurry of barks and hurled herself up. She got teeth into Zeya’s fur, and he had to sling her hard left and then harder right to get rid of her. He felt the rake of her teeth.
That gave Zeya an idea.
&nbs
p; It also gave One-Ear a thought, apparently. She edged closer. She didn’t swarm with the others at all, but stayed apart and watched intently. She was no more than two bounds away. He wondered what her mind made of him, bird head, panther body, and panther smell. He hoped the smell would win.
Zeya dangled his right paw toward the thronging animals, teasing. Some jumped at the paw, and occasionally he felt a wet muzzle. When a brindle got its head high enough, he slapped it hard.
One-Ear leapt when his foreleg was flexed the wrong way.
He knocked her the way she was already leaping but couldn’t claw her.
She circled, tongue hanging, maybe laughing. She would strike again soon.
When she was on his right, he cocked his head to the left, hoping that she would think of a panther’s eyes, straight ahead, not an eagle’s eyes, on opposing sides.
One-Ear took the bait.
Instead of whacking her away, he seized her body, drew her to the limb, and clamped her with both forepaws.
Her head was a whirlwind of teeth, all trying to get at his feathery neck. She flung savage roars into his face. Her body was writhing fury. He locked his good leg to keep his balance.
He sank his talons into her throat.
Blood spouted. Her roars turned to whines and squeals.
He squeezed. At the same time he scissored at her windpipe with his pincer.
Her body sagged.
His talons squeezed a final time, and his pincer tore her throat out.
He let her drop. One-Ear’s body pflumphed into the dust. The pack backed away, mewling. Within instants they slunk away.
Tsola’s drum punctuated his victory.
When he woke up, he needed a few moments to realize that he was back on his aerie. He gaped at the mountain world spread around him in every direction. He marveled again at the perpetual sunrise. He stood up to stretch and discovered that his hind leg didn’t hurt. He felt his neck—the feathers weren’t even ruffled.
What did you learn? said Tsola inside his mind.
“I won,” said Zeya, something atavistic in his voice.
What did you win?
“A fight to the death.”
What did you conquer?
“Dogs that wanted to kill me.”
Maybe you’d better sleep.
“I will.”
He awoke floating in darkness.
He spoke. He heard nothing, not human voice, not bird call, not panther roar. He yelled. If he made a sound, emptiness ate it up. Yet somehow, deep inside himself, was Tsola’s drum.
Then he had an unexplainable feeling. He was trapped. He had to get out. Out! Out right now!
He swam through the air, if this place had air. Faster, furiously he swam. Except that he didn’t seem to move.
Maybe he had no way to tell. He had nothing to judge by, no places he could go toward or away from. Maybe he should swim again.
Am I a spider dangling from a long thread? He reached gently over his head with a paw. Nothing there. He groped left and right. Nothing there. Beneath his feet. Nothing there. What was holding him in place?
He screamed in terror. And heard nothing.
Tsola’s drum massaged his mind.
Something real, where is something real?
He had a brainstorm. He reached a paw to his own throat.
The paw eased through the air and touched nothing.
He felt for his belly. He had no belly, or hindquarters, or head, or… He groped gently for his do-wa and found nothing but empty space.
He could not scream in terror. No throat to scream with. No tongue. No lips.
He slowed somehow. A realization slowed him. Dim at first, very dim. Shapeless as a mist that went on forever. Coalescing slowly, consolidating into a shape-shifting cloud.
I am a consciousness without a body. A consciousness without a world. A consciousness alone in the universe.
He assessed things. This is a dream. Except that it wasn’t. It’s a dream. Too real for a dream. He gave an order. Whatever you are, get out of here.
He shook his head and was perched on his aerie.
He said aloud, “I told it to go away and it did.” He shook his head in amazement. Now Tsola’s drum sounded like a companion.
He made himself turn his head and take in the view all around. How spectacular the world looked from here. He laughed. Spectacular and weird and funny. What could be weirder than a world that disappeared when you told it to? What could be funnier than being a panther-bird? “Oh, world,” he said, “you’re a joke when you aren’t a terror.”
Not bad, said Tsola in his head.
“Was it a dream?”
You tell me.
“No dream is that real.”
Right. Describe to me what’s happening to you.
“My mind is a little wobbly right now.”
Do it.
He told her about the pack of dogs, and then about the… He didn’t know what to call it. “Maybe the experience of absolute aloneness.”
Are these fears of yours? Long-time fears? Dark-of-the-night fears?
“It feels like they’ve always been inside me.”
So they are.
Zeya walked down a winding path, but he couldn’t feel the ground beneath his feet. He felt like he was walking on fog. Four slender trees lined the path on the right side in elegant order. Each one was as tall as five men, and spaced about twenty steps apart. Grassy fields spread behind them. On the other side of the path were tangled woods, wild with weeds, bushes, trees, the normal jumble of a forest. He didn’t care about that. He was drawn to the perfect symmetry and beauty of the trees on his right.
He walked toward them to the beat of Tsola’s drum. A man stepped out from behind the first tree. He stood at attention and as Zeya approached, cocked his spear. It was Nub Ear, the first of Inaj’s assassins. His torso was still bloody from the knife Zeya buried in him, and he had the unseeing eyes of the dead.
Zeya felt twisty-creepies crawling up and down his spine. Deliberately, he disregarded the fear and said, “You’re not real. You’re a villain from my dreams.”
Nub Ear lowered the spear and stepped back behind the tree. As Zeya passed, he could see nothing behind the tree but air.
Half-Shaved Head, though, jumped out from behind the next tree with fierce energy. His skin was loose and sagging from his watery death. As when he toppled into the pool, he held his knife ready.
Zeya said, “If you stab me, I won’t feel it.”
The sentinel beside the next tree was Knob Chin, holding a blow gun. To Zeya’s surprise, his eyes were also glazed with death. The wounds Su-Li gave him must have turned foul.
“Don’t pretend,” said Zeya.
He came to the last of the trees, and Zanda stepped out, dangling his war club and spinning it in a tight circle. His throat was still bloody, and a shard of cane as long as a human hand jutted out from it.
“My uncle,” said Zeya, “shame on you.”
Zanda disappeared.
“Tsola.”
Yes.
“They’re my monsters.”
Think so?
“I’m creating them.”
Then do something about it.
Zeya sat on the bank of the river, occasionally dabbing his beak into the water. In the slow-drifting current he watched the perpetual sunrise, the colors waving with the gentle swells. He grinned at this absolutely incomprehensible world. He loved it.
Off to his left lay a log thicker than his leg and longer than his body. It was half hidden in weeds and covered with furry green moss. It gave the impression of being ancient, and more than ancient, a predecessor of Time itself.
Tsola’s drum spoke of time or eternity.
Off to his right lay a log that, except for minor details, was identical.
They were both slinking through the grass toward him.
The slinking was very slow. He’d been sitting here, perhaps, for the time it would take to gnaw the meat off the bones of
a captured rabbit, if rabbits died in this land, which they didn’t, and if eagle-panthers ate here. The logs had moved in that time perhaps the length of Zeya’s black, furred leg. The signs were small, certain grasses smashed, the tops of tall weeds stirring.
They were water moccasins, of course. For them to show their bodies as olive-colored was only the smallest change. He wondered if they would open their mouths and show the insides, white as the most brilliant clouds. He didn’t think so. Showing their mouths was a threat. Instead they would just strike.
He took comfort in Tsola’s drum.
He grinned. He wondered if he was crazy. He kept his head pointed forward, as a predator bird does, since it sees well to both sides but observes less well straight ahead. He never actually saw either log move.
He wondered if the logs would coil before they struck. He didn’t think so. If this place had eagle panthers, why not fanged logs?
His mind felt calm. Truly. He almost believed himself, but his blood was rimed with ice.
He’d seen the same thing once. He watched two water moccasins sneak up on a bullfrog sitting at the edge of a pond. Their approach was so gradual, by such miniscule movements, that they not only fooled the frog, they fooled each other.
The joker Fate made them strike at precisely the same instant. Fangs sank deep into the frog from opposite sides. Snake bodies thrashed like limbs whipped by high winds. Each hunter was determined to exert its will, swallow its prey. Neither could.
The frog had no will.
The three of them fell into the pond and disappeared beneath the green scum, still thrashing.
Zeya was calm. He would know when. River water dripped from his beak, and he watched.
Two panther paws flashed at once. They bashed two snakes, which looked exactly like water moccasins now. While the snakes were dazed, an eagle talon seized one neck, a pincer the other.
The snakes coiled themselves around Zeya’s feathered legs, but that meant nothing to him. He lifted the heads, each to the level of his opposing eye. He gazed into their white mouths. A little fear still thrummed through his blood.
He maneuvered the two heads together, gaping jaw to gaping jaw.
The snakes clamped—they bolted all their fury into each other. They metamorphosed into a single snake, poisoning itself.
