Authors: Terry Persun
Doublesight
Praise for
Doublesight
“Lately fantasy rarely surprises and seldom delights, but Terry Persun's novel
Doublesight
does both and more. Richly textural, complicated in character, and presenting a world unlike any other, this debut imbues new blood into the genre. It is a stunning fantasy for the new millennium.”
—James Rollins,
New York Times
bestselling author of
The Eye of God
“Persun's captivating new fantasy raises the art of shape shifting to a new level. Enter the world of
Doublesight
where man and animal are one. A fresh adventure awaits!”
—Janet Lee Carey, author of
Dragonswood
Copyright 2013 Terry Persun
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
Attribution
— You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
Noncommercial
— You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
No Derivative Works
— You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.
Inquiries about additional permissions should be directed to:
[email protected]
Cover Design by Greg Simanson
Edited by Richard Mandel
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is unintentional.
PRINT ISBN 978-1-62015-114-3
EPUB ISBN 978-1-62015-104-4
For further information regarding permissions, please contact
[email protected]
.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013933266
I'd like to thank Catherine for giving me space to write, Nicole for keeping me on-task, Terry and Mark for their encouragement, and Richard Mandel and Ken Davis for their editing skills. I would also like to thank Mark Mandell for looking over several beginnings to this book before I got it right.
Contents
1
IT APPEARED TO BE A PERFECT MORNING. The crescent sun pulled itself over the peaked mountains and lay gold across the branches of the trees. A slight breeze caused leaves to quake. Members of the crow clan, loving sunrise, perched in the trees. As humans they had made a great haul the day before, stealing more than usual and escaping the village at night, unnoticed in their multi-colored caravan of wagons.
A low fog settled in the valley and along the Lorensak River several miles ahead where only the tops of trees were visible. On the hillside the air felt crisp and clear. Other birds awakened to the morning as well. Deeper into the woods behind the crows came the songs and chatters of those birds also rising to greet the sun, but Zimp could hear only the cawing of her clan as though they could drag the sun up the sky with their voices. The trees were alive with crows.
She hopped to the end of a branch and ruffled her feathers, leaned into sound as it came from her throat. Her twin sister Zora perched beside her. The cawing rose as over the distant mountains the sun, no longer a crescent, broke loose full and round, a blazing orb. A wave of crows lifted from behind her and flew closer to the wood's edge. Zimp's cousins, uncles, aunts circled above and landed in the cottonwoods, aspen, and pines near her. Zora left her side, glided to a nearby branch, and held fast.
The air snapped with a start. Zimp didn't see where the sound came from, but many of her clan lifted into the sky, a black wave. Another snap and thwang brought an arrow into a branch in a cottonwood to her left. Zimp turned to see where the sound had
originated as two dozen men stepped from behind a grove of trees not a hundred yards away. Why had no one seen them? she wondered. Another six arrows slid into the sky, one hitting a crow flying overhead who attempted to warn the clan. Zimp heard a wing snap.
The crow paused in the sky for a moment. The wing grew fingers and then pushed into the open sky as an arm. There were two arms, then the lengthening of legs. All this occurred while the crow fell from the sky. The arrow had hit her cousin Lim in the shoulder but must have produced enough pain that he couldn't maintain his crow image. The arrow wasn't a mortal wound, but the fall would be.
There was nothing she could do to help. Before long three other clansmen shifted into human form and fell from the sky. Cawing mixed with human screams. The sight shocked her into immobility for a moment. She felt her crow instinct push against her human consciousness. She couldn't allow her crow form to take over her mind completely or there would be no turning back. She shook her head. The screaming became louder as more clansmen were shot from the sky, shifting to human form as they fell earthward. Then she heard a familiar voice.
Zora let out a moan.
Zimp glided to the branch where Zora's crow image had perched only a second before. Now, a human hand, slender and strong, held to a thin branch as legs formed and a torso took shape.
Zimp placed a wing over Zora's hand and began to shift. She held tight to her sister as her body changed and held close to the branch they were both on. More screams filled the crisp morning sky. Zimp glanced around. The sky grew black with crows, many of which had been hit with arrows and were in various stages of shifting to their human shapes. A rain of human bodies fell, some crashing through branches and getting hung up in the trees, others hitting the ground with the clear thud of a dead body. Another flurry of arrows entered the sacred sky. The wind picked up.
Zora's eyes bulged with fear and her hands gripped the branch under Zimp's firm grasp.
Zimp wrapped her legs around the rough corrugation of the branch. Her red cloak fell to one side, and her chin drove into the
branch. She saw that the arrow had hit close to her sister's heart. She stared into her own face: the high cheekbones, the thin slanted eyes, the full, lightly parted lips. The branch bent with their combined weight. “Hold tight, Zora. I'm right here.” Zimp slid forward and let one hand slide down Zora's arm for a better grip.
Another arrow pierced Zora's neck. Her eyes shocked the air with a show of pain. Her grip weakened. A sliver of blood trickled from the corner of Zora's lips, and she released the branch.
Zimp held fast and screamed. The branch lowered as she pushed forward to better hold Zora from falling. The branch dropped with added momentum and snapped loose from the tree. Zimp held tight to Zora's arm and squeezed her legs around the branch until all three slammed into a lower limb. Her grip failed. Zora fell toward ground, the branch slipped between the other limbs of the tree, and Zimp rolled into the next branch, slamming her back, knocking the wind from her. She fell farther and her body wrapped around another limb that she clutched using her arms and legs. Arrows sang to her left and right. She threw a leg over the branch to bring her upright and breathed in tree's dust. She hadn't seen Zora drop, but could now see her body lying crooked in the underbrush. The small limb they had held to, first as crows and then as humans, lay at her side. It appeared to be nothing but a twig next to Zora's human form.
The archers stood together. Zimp placed the intention into her mind to memorize their faces. She slid down the branch close to the trunk of the tree and shifted slowly into her crow image. An arrow glanced the tree trunk above her head. Many of her clan still held to branches, wounded or dying. She noticed some of them turning back into crow image. A good sign. Others were already far in the distance, flying toward the river.
The morning light opened in patches through the crow flight. Zimp's small head and beak peaked around the tree. She could feel instinct shoving against her human intention and thought to fly away, follow her clan. But there was still enough of a human hold, a determination, to keep her to her plan.
She glided closer to the archers, her flight taking her behind a large cottonwood where it would be difficult for them to see her. She landed, heart racing, fear building. The bones of her tiny feet lay across
a thin limb as her body came to rest. She had little time. The fight against instinct was great. She knew that if her fear continued to escalate she might remain in her crow image permanently, losing her natural human image, her whole human life. She couldn't allow her survival instinct to push her that far.
She peered at the men and saw that they were dressed similarly to those in the village she and her clan had robbed. Another man, unarmed except for a broad sword and differently dressed, stood back from the others. She shook her head. She was losing human thought to the increased heartbeat of the frightened crow. She had to either shift or retreat. She chose to retreat.
Zimp pushed straight up into the thicker part of the pine, dodging the close-set branches. Apparently unseen, she broke into the sky and headed into the valley. She glanced back at the carnage. Some of the bodies writhed in pain; some held tightly to branches and took additional arrows. She felt unbelievable sorrow for her sister. Even as a crow, love crept through as a human emotion. It was so strong a sensation that she nearly shifted. She dived and tried to release the human feelings growing inside her. But then, another thought came. Her grandmother. Another human attachment. Too many human thoughts came at once.
