Kingdoms of Light

TEN

The recluse Wiliam, when he finally arrived with a proudly gleeful Tilgrick leading the way, proved to be not the gruff, gloomy dwarf Oskar had expected, but a rather kindly faced, lightly bearded fellow who was noticeably slimmer than the farmer. He reminded Oskar of a gerbil the cats had once chased through the house. Extending a hand, he barely made contact with the dog-man's.

"You're not what I expected," the pleasantly surprised Oskar told the homunculus. "You seem—almost normal."

"Don't be taken in by my attitude, ha." Wiliam put both hands behind his back, interlocking and waggling his hairy fingers. "I'm really a terrible person."

"Yes, I can see that." It was Mamakitty's turn to smile. But not too broadly, lest she frighten their guide away.

"Everyone else thinks I'm mad," Wiliam put in for good measure. "I'm not, you know. I just don't find everything so—funny."

"I'm surprised they haven't tried to marigold you." As he spoke, Oskar was gathering up his small pack and water bag.

"Oh, they have, they have," their guide assured him. "It just doesn't seem to work on me." He almost, but not quite, managed a real frown. "I don't find the world very amusing." Turning, he pointed across the farm's neat fields toward the distant forest. "We need to move fast if we are to avoid Nugwot's followers. It would be best to be deep into the woods before they return on the morrow, when they are likely to bring even greater numbers with them."

He hardly chuckled at all when he spoke, Oskar noted. "Then we'll travel by night and not sleep until morning." Behind him, he heard Cezer sniff.

"Suits me. I'd just as soon be up at night as during the day. Lead on, good Wiliam, and we will follow—amusedly, or not."

The homunculus eyed him speculatively. "Moving at night through thick forest doesn't worry you?"

"Not us." Cocoa exuded confidence. "Nearly all of us see rather better in the dark than you might think. And as Cezer says, we like being up at night." Nearby, Taj groaned.

Amid a subdued chorus of chuckles and good wishes, they bade farewell to their uncommonly grumpy benefactors Tilgrick and Myssa, and in the company of their good-natured guide, started off in single file across the tillage. Moments later, they entered the tree line and found themselves walking at a respectable pace through woodland rich in cheerful foliage and giddy, if largely unseen, fauna.

Scanning the upper reaches of the trees, Oskar detected movement but little in the way of discernible shape. "So even the animals"—how strange to employ a term previously used by others to refer to himself, he mused—"hereabouts are riven by laughter?"

Short of stride but effusive of energy, Wiliam glanced back from his position in the lead. "In the Kingdom of Orange, mirth and merriment are the lifeblood of existence. One who laughs large is admired and respected. Those who laugh little are suspect. Anyone like myself, who finds very little in the world worthy of a chuckle, is made to feel an outcast by such as those who are likely to pursue us." He shrugged small, rounded, distinctively hairy shoulders. "I don't mind. I like being by myself. Frankly, I don't see what's so funny."

"Lucky for us you know the ways through the forest." Mamakitty made a conscious attempt to flatter their guide, on whose continued goodwill they were so dependent.

Wiliam looked over at her. "One forced to dwell in the woods soon learns their ways. I'm glad to be able to help. Tell me—in the kingdom you come from, could someone like myself survive? Would I be accepted even though I laugh but rarely?"

Oskar recalled some of the late Master Evyndd's more dour visitors, long-faced men and women for whom sorceral knowledge was the be-all and end-all of existence. Based on what he had seen, looking up from the Master's feet, it would take a magic spell or two just to make such people smile.

"I think there are places where you might fit right in, yes. But our 'kingdom' is very different from yours in many ways you can't imagine." He eyed the short, heavily bearded gnome thoughtfully. "I'm sure you would be accepted, but you might not be very comfortable with the manner of acceptance."

"Oh so?" Without breaking stride, their guide passed beneath an orange-blue tree. Everyone else had to duck to clear the stiff branches. As Oskar passed underneath, he could have sworn he heard one branch whispering to another, "Have you heard the one about the redwood and the spruce bush?"

"Then maybe it's better I stay here," Wiliam was saying. "I am tempted, though. You folk seems such good and kind, such normal people."

Cocoa laughed softly. The purring giggle caused flowers hanging from a nearby tree to bend delightedly in her direction. "Wiliam, you have no idea."

While it was impossible to tell for certain how much ground they had covered, it was not so very many days before they began to notice a definite lightening of the colors surrounding them. Perhaps the Kingdom of Orange was not so great , in extent as the Kingdom of Red, Oskar mused. Or maybe it was because, with a local to guide them, they were traveling in a straight line across the breadth of the territory. While the humidity remained oppressive, within the shadow of the forest canopy it was not unbearable. Certainly the subtle shift in colors was as perceptible as it was abrupt.

"We are approaching the Kingdom of Yellow," Wiliam informed them in response to their queries concerning the current chromatic imparity. "Unlike the frontier we share with the crimson kingdom to the west, here there is no river to mark the boundary. By this afternoon you will find yourselves marching through a new color, in a new land."

A perceptible jauntiness had entered Taj's step, notwithstanding the slight jaundice that seemed to have infected everyone's appearance. "I think I should be quite at home in the Kingdom of Yellow." He grinned in anticipation. "I'm looking forward to having my natural coloring back, if only until we pass into the kingdom after that."

"Which, I imagine, would be the Kingdom of Green." Those limbs and branches Samm could not duck beneath, he effortlessly pushed aside. "We are making good progress."

"I don't know what lies beyond the Kingdom of Yellow." Wiliam expressed his regrets. "We all of us cling to our respective homelands. But you will find the yellow lands as different from here as the country of orange is from the aggressive Kingdom of Red."

"In what way?" Oskar inquired.

"Well, for one thing—" Wiliam began.

He did not have an opportunity to finish either the sentence or the explanation. Without warning, several figures emerged from the undergrowth directly ahead to block the travelers' path. Despite the deep orange cast the local light gave to their skin and the curving dark glasses they wore to shield their eyes from the light of the sun, they were immediately recognizable.

Oskar's right hand dropped to the hilt of his sword. Behind him, his companions likewise made ready to draw their weapons. Samm unslung the great axe from his back.

More puzzled than startled, Wiliam looked from the newcomers to his tall friends. "You know these people?"

"We have made each other's acquaintance." There was neither lightness nor levity in the words Oskar directed to those blocking the trail. "Hello, Quoll. What brings you and your tailless puke-pail pals to this part of the world-run?"

Behind the quoll, Ruut and Ratha stiffened but said nothing. Quoll gestured diffidently. "You, of course. Did you think we would give up simply because you managed to stumble into a rainbow? When I explained what had transpired to the Khaxan Mundurucu, they soon determined what had occurred, and through the appropriate incantation made it possible for us to follow you even here. The difference is, we entered the same rainbow as you, but via a different color. This color. The Mundurucu said this would be the best place to enter, to confront you. As you see, they were right. The Khaxan Mundurucu are always right." He smiled down his rodentlike nose. "Please to understand, there is no escaping them even in these strange lands of color."

Leaning in Oskar's direction, Mamakitty whispered tersely to her friend. "That's interesting: the 'Khaxan Mundurucu' is a 'they' not an individual."

"Such information is of no use to you," Ruut declared unpleasantly, overhearing her whisper easily, "since you're going to die anyway."

"I think not." As Oskar drew his sword, the sound was echoed by that of his companions drawing their own weapons.

"Or have you forgotten that before we entered the moonbow, we easily kept you three flouncing cadavers at bay?" Beside him, Wiliam's gaze was flicking warily from the travelers he knew to the three menacing strangers he did not.

"Not so easily, as I recall." Ratha made no move to display a blade of her own. "We were diving hard on you when you disappeared."

"Let's rush 'em," Cezer whispered. "We can overpower them before they can pull their weapons."

"Come to think of it," Taj added, "where are their crossbows? I see only long knives slung from their belts."

"We did not bring our crossbows with us." Ruut's smile revealed the narrow, elongated canines through which he and his slightly more attractive cousin extracted the lifeblood of others. "Please to realize that this time we have no need of such clumsy devices."

"Ah," murmured Cezer, "then you won't be surprised when I run you through with this clumsy device of my own." Whereupon he raised his sword and charged.

"Cezer, no!" Mamakitty shouted. As well try to restrain an angry shout as their fellow cat-man. Cursing, Oskar raised his own weapon as the other man rushed past him in a blur of silk and steel.

Blade upraised, Cezer brought it down in a long, sweeping curve aimed directly at Quoll's head. The object of the attack did not attempt to retreat, or use his remarkable quickness to try and evade the blow. Instead, he raised his left hand and uttered a short, sharp bark notable for its peculiar timbre. It was a most peculiar intonation.

From the exposed fangs of his smiling associates there shot forth thin threads of stiffening blood. In the manner of ordinary blood, as soon as they made contact with the open air, they began to coagulate. Like so many slender red-orange ropes, they wrapped whiplike around the onrushing Cezer.

Before his sword could be brought down to strike the edgy, staring quoll, it was tightly bound by the solidifying, constricting strands. So was the rest of the struggling swordsman, who soon found himself enveloped from head to foot.

Taking a step forward, Quoll reached out and with one hand gave the raging, muffled figure of Cezer a sharp shove. The helpless, bound swordsman promptly toppled over backward, hitting the ground hard. He lay there, his sword bound to his side, struggling furiously but futilely.

Oskar's fingers tightened on his own weapon. The fury of his wolf ancestors burned in his eyes. At least, he hoped it did. The fury of Airedale ancestors did not carry quite the same inspirational cachet. "What have you done to him?"

"Restrained him." Quoll turned red-orange eyes on the softly growling Oskar. "Would you have preferred that I killed him? Easy enough to do, you know." Like his animal self, the quoll was in constant motion, willing landlord of a metabolism set permanently on overdrive. "I could simply have directed the gluey expectorations of my companions to seal off his nose and mouth as well as his arms and legs."

"Why didn't you?" Cocoa's own sword dangled ready at her side.

"Because we are commanded by the Khaxan Mundurucu to bring as many of you as possible back alive. For questioning." His jittery smirk returned full strength. "I regret I will probably not be allowed to attend those sessions, which promise to be wonderfully entertaining. You, I think, will not enjoy them as much."

"How did you do that?" Wiliam indicated the now taut strands of organic red-orange that bound Cezer securely.

"One has no need of swords and crossbows when one has access to magic." Ignoring the curious gnome, Quoll kept his attention focused on Oskar. "The Khaxan Mundurucu take no chances. In sending us here, and suspecting that at least one among you may be a transformed disciple of the demised mage Evyndd, they prepared us accordingly. Not wishing to mete out too much power even to those who serve them, they armed us with certain skills that are only reliable when we three act in concert. Does that make you feel more confident? If so, then why not have at me in the manner of your uncomfortably cocooned companion?" Long whiskers twitched in the direction of the prone, bound Cezer. "My companions and I could use the exercise."

Samm hefted his axe, biding his time, watching and waiting for a possible opening. "The Mundurucu must have great confidence in you to send you after us again, since you failed so miserably in your task on the previous occasion."

Quoll's smirk vanished, and he glared at the giant. Of them all, the ferocious former marsupial feared only the ex-serpent. A big snake like Samm would readily and easily have made a quick meal of an incautious quoll, sharp teeth and uncommon energy notwithstanding. No matter how complete, no physical transformation from animal to human could entirely erase such primeval fears.

"Your come-down will be as complete as that of your companions, constrictor. If you don't believe me, please to try it and see." Samm did not move. Instead, he continued to stare in his customary, unblinking fashion directly into the quoll's eyes. Discomfited, their adversary was finally forced to look away. "As for the consequences of the outcome of our previous confrontation, the Mundurucu are as forgiving as they are all-powerful." Holding up his left hand, he exposed his four remaining fingers, the fifth having been recently and violently reduced in length by three-quarters. "In their benevolence and mercy, this was all the punishment they meted out."

From the back of the group, Taj piped up unexpectedly. "I'll bet when you show up again without us, they'll slice off three-quarters of a different part of you. Want to know which part I think that will be?"

"You're next, you sniveling little flesh-strip of a grounded chorister!" Raising his lethal right hand, the quoll took a threatening step forward. As he did so, his two caped companions opened their mouths wide.

"Stop!"

Taken momentarily aback by the source of the interruption, Quoll hesitated, arm still outstretched, lips parted to declaim the incantation with which he had been gifted by the Mundurucu. His furry brows creased as he regarded the undersize inhabitant of Orange.

"What do you want? This doesn't concern you and needn't involve you. Unless," he added after an ominous pause, "you wish it to."

"I just have one thing to say. Then you can get on about your business."

When Quoll hesitated, Oskar appropriated the ensuing silence. "Let him go. As you say, this needn't concern him, and the Mundurucu won't want him for anything."

The rodent-faced assassin's head twitched once. "Speak your say, then, and leave us to the business that is none of yours."

"So I shall." Drawing himself up as much as he could (which was not very much at all) and pulling his beard out of the way, Wiliam began to declaim with utmost solemnity. "There once was a gimp from Doklafa, who noidled his nurse in the patla—"

Oskar and his friends gaped at their thickset guide as he rambled on. For their part, Quoll and his companions likewise stared and listened uncertainly. But as Wiliam approached the conclusion of his crude yet convoluted ditty, a most unusual thing began to happen.

Mamakitty was first to notice the metamorphosis. It began as a hint of a smile on Oskar's face. The hint taken, it quickly matured into a wide grin. Next to her, Cocoa was blushing orange-pink as the rhyming tale jogged serenely to comic fruition. Taj had already begun to snicker, and even the always stolid Samm was smiling broadly. Soon the lot of them were chuckling, then guffawing, and finally roaring with uncontrollable laughter.

Teardrops ran down Mamakitty's face as Wiliam, without pausing or losing semantic stride, segued smoothly into a second story, this one twice as funny as the first. Far more importantly, she noticed through her tears, was that despite their best efforts to resist both the content and consequences of the guide's recitation, Quoll, Ratha, and Ruut were equally overcome with bouts of ungovernable jollity. The bat-folk in particular were unable to shut out the goblinish monologue.

Between snatches of his steady stream of irresistible japery, Wiliam managed to slip a word or two of more serious significance to the belly-clutching Oskar.

"Hurry now! I will hold them as long as I can."

"But how on—ho-ho-har!—how are you—hee-hee-ha!—doing (gasp) this?" Sides aching, laughing so hard it took him several tries, he sheathed his sword and beckoned for his companions to follow him. Chortling and crying, they proceeded to cut Cezer free from his bonds. The unavoidable trembling induced by their side-splitting laughter caused some of their sword and knife strikes to slip and slide dangerously as they hacked the red-orange strands from his sides. Intending to upbraid them for their clumsiness, Cezer instead collapsed in one gale of laughter after another.

Helping him to his feet, the travelers stumbled and tottered past their tormentors. Quoll turned and tried to follow, but by now was laughing so hard he could barely stand erect. Frantically desirous of shutting out the bearded homunculi's hysterically funny and thoroughly incapacitating words, he found that he could not do so. The unrelenting, continuous spate of incorrigible raillery had him and his fanged associates virtually paralyzed with mirth.

"Believe me," Wiliam chuckle-spoke to Oskar as the latter prepared to follow his companions into the depths of the vastly amusing forest, "this isn't easy for me. But just because I don't share the overweening desire of my fellows to see who can outgiggle the next doesn't mean I'm incapable of jocularity myself. In fact, you might almost say that living alone and apart has sharpened my ability to blend harmoniously with a kingdom that rise and falls, lives and dies, on merriment."

"Look—ha-ha-ha!—out!" Oskar shouted warningly.

As Wiliam whirled, Quoll slashed downward. But before his very real and unethereal, unspell-cast knife could strike, the little gnome delivered a punch line that caught the assassin square in his funny bone. The resultant involuntary cackle caused the quoll to clutch at his middle and bend double with laughter while crumpling to the ground. Behind him, Ruut and Ratha were writhing on the moist earth, caught up in paroxysms of unmanageable hysteria.

"Hurry!" Wiliam urged the laughing, weeping man staggering gratefully behind him. "Slight sorcery is no match for strong humor, but there is a limit to what even a really good joke can accomplish."

"How—har-har-hee!—how long can you—ho-ho-har!—keep this up?" Oskar gasped weakly.

"Long enough, I think," Wiliam chortle-assured him. "By the time you have crossed into the Kingdom of Yellow, Nugwot and his followers will be here. When they arrive, I can turn the restraining and joke-telling over to them. Go now, and in a quiet moment, when you are safe and secure, salute me with a drink—and try not to spit all over yourself when you are doing so."

Barely able to nod, Oskar turned and hurried after his companions. As Wiliam's steady singsong of silliness faded behind him, swallowed up by exotic orange-tinted trees and flowers that were all leaning in the gnome's direction to partake of the inspired buffoonery, the dog-man gradually regained control of his emotions. So did his companions, though there were moments in the ensuing hours where Cezer might find himself meeting Taj's glance, or Mamakitty encountered Cocoa's, whereupon all concerned would burst out spontaneously at the recollection of what had just transpired.

"You know," an aching Taj was saying much later, "it occurs to me that if you substituted a cross-eyed cow for the Maid of Milkow in good Wiliam's last soliloquy, then the payoff would be not only twice as funny, but—"

"For Bubastis's sake," Cocoa admonished him, "don't make me laugh any more!" Wincing slightly, she clutched at her left side just below the lowermost rib. "My insides already feel as if they've been taken apart and put back together again with string and spittle."

"Maybe that's what's happened to Quoll and the other two." As he picked his way through the forest, Cezer continued to groom gruesome little bits of red-orange goo out of his hair and clothing. While doing so, he lamented the fact that in his present form he could not reach certain multiple problem areas with his tongue. "With luck, maybe Wiliam made them laugh so hard they exploded."

From time to time they were distracted by a crashing or thumping in the woods behind them. At such moments they would draw their weapons and assume defensive postures and positions. Each time, it turned out to be nothing more than some eccentric forest dweller, chuckling and chortling its way through the weald. Catching sight of the travelers, it would invariably emit a burst of startled laughter before whirling and sprinting off in the opposite direction.

Even the food here was happy. Prey perished beneath their weapons with nary a scream, inevitably expiring with a smile on its face and a last, gasping giggle. Fruit coughed amusedly when plucked from vines or branches, and berries tittered in squeaky, high-pitched tones when popped between hungry teeth.

Making a face, Cocoa flung one snickering pit from her lips and chewed reluctantly on the sweet pulp that filled her mouth. "The sooner we're out of these woods, the better I'll like it. I prefer my food dead silent, not mocking me as I eat."

"Could be worse." Oskar glanced back over a shoulder. "It could fight back."

"Let it fight," she snapped at him. "I like my food to resist a little. What good is a mouse that won't try to escape? Where's the fun in that?" Her expression crinkled. "I don't think I could kill a mouse that giggled at me."

"Hush." Mamakitty raised a hand, and those behind her slowed. "I think the forest is opening up. The light is growing brighter, too."

Conversation ceased as they made their way forward at a more cautious pace. Not knowing what to expect, they had learned in the course of crossing between two kingdoms to be ready for anything. Or so they thought. They were not prepared for the sight that greeted them as they stepped out of the thick foliage.

The daylight had certainly changed. Not only had it grown brighter, but their surroundings were now tinged with an intense lemony yellow. It was almost normal, and would have been more so had not the tawny tint overwhelmed all else: the brush and high grass that had replaced the forest, the lazy yellowish stream that flowed from north to south in front of them, the translucent flying creatures that soared high overhead in the depths of a saffron sky.

And the gigantic wall of massive cut limestone that paralleled the stream and completely blocked their way eastward.

Oskar had to tilt his head back to squint all the way to the top of the Brobdingnagian barrier. At first glance, it looked as solid as it was high. Closer inspection revealed that it was indeed constructed of impenetrable, immovable, yellowish rock. No facade raised by desperate magic, it had been piled up block by block to discourage intruders. It certainly discouraged Oskar and his companions.

"Can we go around it, do you think?" Mamakitty was gazing down the length of the wall.

"We certainly can't go over it." Standing beside the little stream that ran along the base of the bulwark, Oskar cast an uneasy glance back the way they had come. Were Quoll and his vampiric companions even now being well and thoroughly marigolded by Nugwot and his followers, or had they managed to break free, and were they at this very moment racing through the forest to overtake their fleeing quarry?

"There was a time when I could have." Taj sounded wistful.

"Over here!" Having hiked a little ways downstream from the others, Cezer was beckoning for them to join him.

"What is it?" Oskar called out, cupping his hands in front of his mouth. "A way over?"

"Not over." Cezer was standing up against the wall, nearly hidden by the oh-so-slight curvature of the barrier. "But maybe through."

The gate was massive. Fashioned of heavy wooden planks embellished with intricately carved whorls and spirals and braced with iron, it loomed over their heads, reaching almost to the top of the smooth-sided stone rampart. Mamakitty was the first to note the similarities among the numerous designs that decorated the wall.

"See?" With a finger she traced one particularly elaborate cochlear shape. "Lines radiate from each corkscrew design, sometimes connecting multiple carvings. I think each one must, in one way or another, represent the sun."

"There are dozens of different kinds." Kneeling, Taj was examining a large disc form near the base of the gate. "Here's one with a multitude of internal coils."

"And here's another that shows some kind of flames spurting from the edge." Cezer laughed. "Whoever carved these didn't know what they were doing. I mean, certainly the sun is hot, but it's not on fire!"

"I suppose it's understandable that the people of this country pay a lot of attention to the sun." Oskar was studying the cast iron hinges and bands that held the enormous doors together. "After all, this is the Kingdom of Yellow."

"A kingdom is a kingdom." Retreating to the edge of the glistening rill, Cezer tilted back his head to study the top of the barrier. "If I can climb half as well as I used to, I'm pretty certain I can make it to the top of this gate."

"So am I," concurred Mamakitty, "and likely Cocoa as well. But where does that leave the others?"

"It's too much for me." Oskar stood alongside Cezer. "I never was much of a climber. Somehow I don't think I can dig under this fence, either." As for Samm, the giant's comment on the barrier before them took the form of a single grunt. His thick fingers would never be able to gain a purchase on the grainy grouting between the stones or the thin cracks in the rocks themselves.

"Then we're stuck." Mamakitty was not giving up, but she was clearly discouraged.

"Not necessarily." Cocoa was examining the wall. "If some of us can get over, we can try and open the gate from the other side."

"What if the gatekeepers object to your intentions?" Mamakitty asked her.

She frowned. "What gatekeepers? I don't see or hear any gatekeepers."

"Exactly my point. Why should they have to watch a gate as big and solid and strongly made as this one? But if there's some kind of guard post or station on the other side, you can be sure they'll be watching you as you climb down. We don't know how they'll react. We don't even know what they might look like."

"Why don't we just ask them?"

Everyone turned to where Taj was standing next to the gate. "And just how do you propose we go about doing that?" Cezer inquired acerbically.

Turning slightly, Taj pressed both hands against the door behind him and pushed. From within the massive wooden gate there arose a profound creaking as it swung slightly inward. Smiling apologetically, Taj replied to his questioner.

"It's not locked."