Beast (6 page)

I open my mouth to scream, but swallow the scream just in time.

For this must be the
pari's
curse! If I call out, Father will come with bow and arrow, and the lion will leap away as the arrow enters my heart. Clever, cruel curse.

Breath whistles in my nostrils.

I jump to my feet. But I'm heavy. My head stays
low. This is not my balance. This is not my weight. Nothing is right. I am ill. Over my shoulder I see the back and tail of the lion. I try to run. I fall, splayed on the packed earth under a hazelnut tree.

In panic I turn to face the beast that will tear my throat.

Nothing's there.

I look down. The massive paw of the beast waits on the ground directly below me. Does it tease me? Ardeshir talked about lions yesterday. He said lions rest or hunt or copulate. He said nothing of teasing their prey—or, at least, not within my earshot.

Has the
pari
taken on the form of this lion? Does she wait only to increase the torture? What else could explain why the beast doesn't lunge at such close range?

Impossible close range. Nothing is right.

Can I outwit a master hunter? I inch my right foot forward.

The lion's paw moves the slightest bit.

A wretched idea begins to form — more wretched than anything I have ever heard or read about.

I look down at the lion's left paw.

I move my left foot.

The lion's left paw moves.

Oh, evil thought! I lift my left foot.

The lion's left paw lifts.

This cannot be. The
pari
has bewitched me again, so that now I believe I am lion. I put my mouth over my foreleg and clamp down. Hair mats against my tongue and palate. My leg hurts; I taste my own blood.

I am insane.

My eyes flicker all about in fear. This is too close to people.

A lion's thought. My thought.

I walk on unsteady legs. I try to visualize four-legged animals—a cat, a dog, a deer. Right front paw, left rear paw. Left front paw, right rear paw.

I walk carefully, gradually increasing my pace. After a while I can do this without thought. I can walk a lion's walk; crazy or not, I can do this.

My skin is loose. It's as though I walk inside it, my muscles rippling beneath a coat. I stop at a coconut tree and spread my claws in wonder. Then I retract them and walk.

A lion's walk. A lion's body.

Last night the woman in my arms was but a crude dream compared to the nightmare of this morning. I yell to wake myself, to return to my sensibilities. A roar thunders within my head.

Shouts come from the palace. They scream of lions. I am lion! No insanity, no nightmare, truth. And the hunt starts within the hour.

“The lion's in the rose garden—there! Get your swords!”

I run in a circle. Where can I go? The town is not safe; people will be coming at me from every side. Every side except the hunting park. And that's exactly where the
pari
wants me to go—to the woods, where my father will hunt me down. The brilliance of the way this
pari
carries out her curse takes my breath away.

I need a plan. In this moment more than any previous of my entire life, I need to think straight. I am Orasmyn, the scholar prince; I can figure out an escape.

The smell of incense on the clothing of people disgusts me. The stink of their sweat sickens me, panics me. They are coming. They will kill me.

I'm loping now to the gate of the hunting park, fighting the urge to break into a full run for fear that I'll stumble in this awkward body. People cry out from behind. I sense where their voices come from with a precision new to me. The gate is fastened by a rope loop. I put my front paws on the top and lift the loop with my teeth. And I am in the park. Nothing can hold me back any longer — I run at breakneck speed.

Past elm, oak, and maple, without thought, running, running. I skirt around the chinar, poplar, and magnolia. I run like the maddened. The trees change to mainly pine and spruce—trees that signal I am nearing the foot of the mountains.

I stop at last. The world seems to keep rushing by for a few seconds—then it gradually settles. This part of the hunting park is unfamiliar. I listen: The
only noises beyond my panting are those of animals.

I pant. Me. My long, wide tongue hangs from my mouth, cooling my whole body. This is me, this is Orasmyn, panting.

The sun climbs; it is full morning. My stomach contracts painfully — I am famished. Reason tells me to find a good hiding place and stay there. Stay until this spell passes. Because it has to pass. I will not allow myself to believe it can last. Terror can undo a mind; terror can lead to irreparable mistakes. I will hide and wait out this spell.

Yet I feel like an empty olive oil barrel. I need filling. And lions are fast. This much I just learned. I can race away at the first sign of danger.

Birds catch my attention. Small dark gray birds with black masks at the eyes. I've seen these birds all my life, but I've never paid attention to them. A larger gray bird with a white belly lands on a branch high above the flock of small birds. A pair of charcoal gray birds preen one another on a low branch.

Gray and black and white.

The leaves range from light gray to black.

The trunk of the plane tree they sit in is dark gray.

My own fur is the lightest gray.

I see no colors on earth.

Yet the sky is blue.

My eyes are drawn back to the birds. To their quick and bright black eyes. This feline eyesight that
is so impoverished of color is keen with respect to distance, for I detect each feather of the birds clearly, each small flutter.

I would eat the entire flock.

Raw. Filled with forbidden blood. That is something to think about. But not now. Not while hunger rules me.

I leap to a low branch, teeter for a moment, and drop clumsily to the other side.

I leap again, this time taking a few steps along the branch to find my balance. But as soon as I stop moving, I fall off.

I circle the tree. I must get up there. It's not the birds that urge me on at this point. The flock took to the air at my first leap. No, it's the thought of the
taziyan
—the greyhounds—and the elephants — Kooma and the two others I have not seen. Somehow this thought has come to me right now—and it prevails over my hunger. The dogs and elephants will come to drive the wild cats toward the hunters. The ground is not safe.

I leap again, from one branch to a higher one, to an even higher one, and flop down immediately, straddling the limb. The weight of my hanging legs jars me. A knob of wood presses sharp against my belly. I scooch forward and suddenly fall to my right, hugging the branch tight so that I dangle upside down. Nausea fills me. The first time I climbed on a
camel's back, I felt sick like this. It was a gigantic creature, from Bactria. Heights are not my strong point. But I cannot hang here forever.

I drop, twisting in midair, whipping my tail around instinctively, but not fast enough. I land on one side and scramble to my feet.

My stomach contracts again.

Hide or hunt?

The lion in me preempts the man. I must eat.

My ears stand stiff. My back goes rigid. Something watches me. Something that smells totally new — a strong musk. My peripheral vision, which is keen indeed, cannot capture this something. I turn my head slowly, slowly.

The lioness is perfectly still. Her shoulders and hips protrude, as though the rest of her hangs from that frame. She stares at me. Now she stretches her neck forward, and her torso seems to pull together, firm and high on the bone, as though she's gathering energy. She gives a low, sad moan.

I bolt. I run in as straight a path as the trees allow. So many trees, but nowhere to hide. O Merciful One, let me find a prince's energy. My legs must go faster. I run.

A new lioness gets to her feet in front of me, as though forming from the dirt itself.

I swerve, skid, stumble, and roll.

The lioness who has been following me is far behind. She trots up slowly, in no rush.

I stand and face her. I am lion, I am lion, I am lion. I've never heard if lions are cannibals, but if they aren't, O Merciful One, let me remember I am lion.

The other lioness stays in her spot, ears cocked, eyes wide, lips closed. She watches intently.

The first lioness slows to a walk. Her lips are black; her nose is black and riddled with scars. She makes puffs at regular intervals through those lips and nostrils. She stops a body's length from me. Large whiskers form parallel horizontal rows on her cheeks, each emerging from a small dark spot. The top row has only spots, no whiskers. Her face is wide—over wide jaws.

I think I will pass out.

She blinks and looks away. The back rim of her small, rounded ears is black. Her right ear has two nicks.

I hear myself panting.

The lioness looks at me again. Her deep-set eyes have round pupils, not vertical slits like the pupils of the bazaar cats. The black tuft on the end of her tail swats across her rear. She opens her mouth fully and holds it there.

I count four fangs and four knife-edged teeth behind them, then molars. I am dead unless I attack
first. I crouch, praying that my body will know how to spring.

Ahchoo! The lioness snaps her jaw shut.

She sneezed. That lioness sneezed.

She squats and sits like the Sphinx I visited on my pilgrimage to Mecca. She looks away again.

I stay taut, as ready as my queasy heart allows.

The second lioness trots over now. She comes right up to where I crouch in the dirt. I am panting so hard, I think my heart will explode. She rubs that part of her head right above the eye against my cheek. She puts her weight into the rub; it's all I can do to keep from falling to the other side. She crouches now, and pushes her head along the length of my whole body, until we are rubbing, side against side. Suddenly she springs up and twirls around to put her face near mine again. She licks my head. My neck. Her tongue is long and rough, and the whole time she is softly humming.

The first lioness watches, her gaze open.

I pant more loudly, but the dizziness has passed. A new feeling enters me—a rush like waters cascading at the first spring thaw in these mountains. It invigorates.

The second lioness rolls onto her back, exposing white fur. She waits expectantly.

I know what she waits for. And I have no idea how to give it. This is me, inside this body, this is me,
Orasmyn. How can I think of responding to this lioness? But I am not thinking. I pant.

She gets to her feet and trots around me, her tail raised.

I find myself on my feet. I trot after her.

She stops and crouches.

I stand behind her.

She lifts her tail higher, her flanks higher.

I am hot with the impulse to mate. I look back at the first lioness. She looks at me, then away.

I straddle the lioness at my feet, my front legs straight on either side of her ribcage, my back legs flexed. A quiet rumble comes from her throat. I have the urge to bite the back of her neck, but I resist with all my might. Instead, I bite at the air. But I cannot resist other urges. I thrust, and within seconds she yowls and twists under me, swatting at my head.

I duck to the side, and she's out from under me in an instant. I jump around to face her, confused, ready to defend myself.

Instead, she drops onto her side with a sigh.

I wait.

She doesn't even look at me. She lolls her head onto the ground and breathes loudly.

Slowly I lower myself till I lie beside her, ever wary of those paws that can swat.

The weight of my body pulls at me. I let my head fall
to the ground. Everything about me is strange. But the way the ground welcomes this huge body of mine feels more natural than any bedroom I've slept in.

We stay lying that way for several minutes. Perhaps a quarter of an hour. And now the first lioness walks in front of me, presenting her rear.

My chest tightens. I find her the most sexually arousing female I have ever imagined. The rumble in her throat lures me. This time my fangs clamp down on her neck without hesitation. I do not break her skin, yet I feel her tremble under me. The trembling excites me more—me, the prince who never joined the hunt—I am excited by the fear of the female below me. We mate, and I jump off immediately afterward.

All three of us lie in a beam of sunlight, resting.

I try to think. I am Orasmyn. I have a conscience and a soul. I am Orasmyn.

Hunger returns, banishing thought. A low growl comes unbidden from my throat.

Both females rise as one. They trot away.

I feel stupid. It is insanely dangerous to stay with them. Yet the idea of being alone in lion form undoes me. I follow them.

We travel one behind the other, slowly and silently.

The first female falls to the ground in a crouch. The second female follows suit. She looks over her shoulder at me. I crouch.

The first female creeps forward, her chest close to the ground.

The second female trots in a half crouch over to the side and out of sight.

I don't know who to follow. I don't understand what's going on. I stay put.

The stag somehow got separated from the herd. He feeds on grasses that have managed to grow tall in a small clearing. He hasn't spotted us. His breath moves with a light rasp. I can hear it from where I crouch. Even with his head down, it's easy to see this is a tall animal. Upright and reaching for the highest leaves, his antlers probably stand taller than the tallest man. The tines are so many, I'd have to concentrate to count them. And each antler ends in a triple point. He must be young—maybe even a hart—-for otherwise he would have dropped those antlers by now and new, fuzzy ones would be growing.

A breeze ripples my fur, plays with the hair on the tips of the first lioness's ear. I stare at the two nicks. They charm me. They make her seem vulnerable.

Did she move? If so, it was almost imperceptible. Now again. She makes her way forward a finger's length at a time, ever more flattened against the ground. I watch. In the span of a half hour, she moves no more than the width of the small pool in the fruit-tree garden. The very tip of her tail twitches.