Zadayi Red (36 page)

He felt a glow in his chest. “Okay, if this is the Land beyond the Sky Arch, where’s Thunderbird?”

You’ll find him
, said Tsola.

It was eerie, talking to someone inside him.

His cheek got a sharp itch. He reached up to scratch it and touched feathers. With a jolt he remembered.
These must be the feathers for Thunderbird.
He felt both his cheeks—feathers. His forehead, chin, neck, all feathers. Was he wearing the beautiful feathers? Weird beyond strange.

He reached for his nose and put his hand on something horny. A beak? He opened his mouth, stuck a finger in, and bit himself with his own beak.

A quaver of fear ran up and down his spine.

He raised his hands and looked at them. The right hand was a talon. The left hand, the one with the webbed fingers that marked his life path, had turned into a claw, like that at a crayfish.

What on Earth?
His nerves were all drums and rattles.

No
, Tsola reminded him,
not on Earth
.

He looked at his feet. They were paws.

The drums and rattles crescendoed.

His legs were those of a big cat. His body was a black panther’s.

Worse, he had a second set of arms. Or rather legs, panther legs, with paws.

“Hello,” he said out loud, “I’m scared.”

You’re all right,
said Tsola.

He surveyed himself. His upper legs were a panther’s. His arms, a separate set from his front legs, ended in a talon and a claw. His chest and belly were a panther’s, like his hind legs. From what he could tell his face was a bird’s.

“What’s going on?”

You’re beginning to discover your gifts.

“You mentioned gifts.” His tone was quavery.

Yes.

“Better tell me.”

Klandagi gave you the body of a panther, as you can see. You will be able to run fast on your four legs, faster than any person, faster than any animal in the forest.

Zeya waited. He wondered why he’d need to run in this land.

Paya gave you a human arm with a pincer, like his. It was the best he could do, and his dear heart is in it. I gave you an eagle leg with a talon. I also gave you the head and neck of an eagle. Your eyesight is amazing.

The drums and rattles were frenzied-wild now.

Su-Li gave you the beak of a buzzard. You can smell as well as any creature on Earth.

“What do I need to smell?” Then, “Why don’t I have wings?”

You haven’t earned them. But you will.

He pondered. Two companions were left out. “What about Jemel?”

She gave you a human heart. A vessel of love
, said Tsola between his ears.
Your love for her, your love for yourself, your love for life and everything in it.

Zeya nodded. He felt odd. It must be a blessing to receive these marvelous gifts but . . . “And my mother?”

S
he gave you courage. Whatever comes to you, you can face it calmly, clearly, optimistically.

Zeya nodded. What was she
not
telling him? What was here to be afraid of?

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.

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.