Kingdoms of Light

FOURTEEN

Its unrelieved hostility to trespassers aside, the amazingly dynamic forest that seemed to comprise the whole of the Kingdom of Green was an impressive place—far more so than its benign otherworld counterparts like the Fasna Wyzel. Instead of trees of a type, all flourished in the verdantly egalitarian domain. Evergreens grew side by side with tropical diderocarps, while the hardy dwarf brush of the near tundra snuggled close to mangroves, cypress, and other tropical water-loving trees. Palms shaded wild roses, while ginkgoes wrapped long, spreading branches around the trunks of exfoliating eucalypti. There was room for all, without rhyme or reason or regard for climate or soil. Aside from the natural competition for sunlight and sustenance, it was truly a magical place, Oskar marveled.

If only it wasn't trying so hard to kill them.

"I don't understand." Ducking a flung, unrecognizable nut somewhere in size and shape between coco and filbert, he and his companions waited while Samm strode forward to chop down the offending growth. "Doesn't this forest understand we mean it no harm?"

Their white maple guide strove to explain while simultaneously shielding Oskar with its trunk from attack by the surrounding vegetation. "Most of the trees in this forest kingdom consider all nongrowing things a threat. Unlike my friends and I, the majority of them are only broad-leafed, not broad-minded. Mobiles dig up our roots, devour our seeds, rip off our bark to eat, or bore through it to lay their parasitic eggs in our heartwood. Those capable of thought like yourselves cut us up and use our bodies for shelter, or burn us to provide the additional heat their own bodies are not capable of producing." Branches leaned in the direction of the perambulating sycamore.

"When but a sapling, Oppin there had a particularly close grove mate. They shared soil and the same access to sunlight. One night the other had a dream, of marching bipeds like yourselves armed with things called saws. Its screams upon awakening unnerved a whole section of forest. Poor thing was never the same after that. All his leaves fell out, he developed a severe scale infestation, and eventually he just withered."

"I'm sorry about that," Oskar responded, "but it's no reason to fear my friends and I."

"Well, not you, perhaps. But your companions are different."

"We're all different. And we're not actually bipeds."

"Ah, an enchantment! Ever since you roused us from our plots, I have been wondering about that. It does not matter. You are bipeds now, and will continue to be perceived as such by the forest."

"It doesn't matter." Cezer started forward as soon as Samm indicated that it was once more safe to proceed. "With our serpentine friend to clear the way, we'll be through in no time."

"His activities are certainly making an impression." Ambling along on its strong, magically emancipated roots, the oak inspected the carcass of the fallen bousoun tree. No longer would it grow, or throw, potentially lethal bousoun nuts at wandering travelers. "Each passing day sees a steady diminution in the frequency of these attacks."

Mamakitty shuffled thick leaf litter with her feet, wishing she had the time and the anatomical structure to scamper through the crunchy, crackling ground cover on all fours. "Hopefully, the trees that lie ahead of us will find out from others what is happening and let us pass without incident." She nodded in the direction of their oversize companion. "I worry that our large friend may be getting tired."

The giant overheard her. "Not at all," he rumbled in response. Resting on his shoulder, the stone blade of the great axe was now stained with sap. "I like cutting down trees."

Off to the left, Oskar thought he saw a stand of sugar pines shudder. That was not surprising. Word of Samm's ongoing depredations on behalf of the advancing travelers had surely spread throughout this part of the kingdom by now. What was unsettling was that Oskar thought he could feel the trees shudder. No matter how dense their network of roots, they ought not to have been capable of disturbing the earth that forcefully.

There it was again: a distinct and unequivocal trembling underfoot. And then a third tremor, stronger still.

"What do you make of this quaking?" In the olivine-tinted light, Cocoa's striking green eyes appeared almost black.

"You feel it, too?" He shifted his attention to their sycamore. It had edged closer to the willow and the maple. The oak continued to stand off by itself, studying not the route ahead or the surrounding trees but the soil underfoot.

"I don't need a tree to tell me what's happening." Wary and alert, Cezer had come to a halt. Though his sword remained in its scabbard, he scanned the surrounding woods uneasily. "Something's coming."

"Something big." Samm unlimbered his implacable axe.

"There!" A startled Taj whistled as loudly as he could.

It came crashing through the dense woodland, its massive crown overawing the surrounding growths. The green-hued light could not entirely obscure the fact that its trunk was an odd grayish hue, with a highly distinctive scale-like bark. Branches grew up rather than out, and many were themselves thicker around than all but the largest trees. It was very simply the biggest ambulatory thing Oskar and his companions had ever seen.

And it was coming straight toward them on short but immensely powerful roots.

"It is the greatest of all trees—a kauri!" The willow fairly threw itself forward, scrabbling across the ground at a speed Oskar would not have believed it capable of mustering. Its three panicked companions followed frantically in its wake.

Having seen how Oskar had liberated four of the iconoclasts among them, the trees of the forest had somehow conspired to set into motion the most monumental of their own kind, an ancient and monstrous member of the pine family. Samm's axe was useless against such a perambulating colossus. It would take the giant weeks, not moments, to make a dent in the gigantic girth. As to the tree's actual intentions, Oskar did not intend to linger to find them out.

"Run!" he heard himself shouting. The warning was unnecessary, as everyone had already taken flight, sprinting to escape the lumbering wooden massif. It was enormous, he noted, but slow, the leafy crown swaying back and forth with each uncertain step. Though he missed the ability to move rapidly on all fours, he soon saw that he and his friends should easily be able to outdistance the oncoming colossus.

He looked back over his shoulder only when Cocoa screamed. What he saw sent his heart leaping into his throat and choked off his next breath.

The kauri was falling. It was sacrificing itself, descending in a dreamy but rapidly accelerating arc of inescapability. It was so broad none could evade its bulk, so tall that Cezer and Mamakitty, running in the lead, did not have room enough to escape its reach. The majestic bole toppled completely in a matter of seconds, smashing into the ground with a thunderous roar that could be heard throughout much of the Kingdom of Green, taking mature trees, dozens of smaller saplings, and a whole thicket of bushes down with it. Impacted dust and dirt rose fifty feet into the air, while splinters flew at lethal velocity in every direction.

Then all was quiet once more. A few woodland dwellers crept from their hiding places to have a look at the fallen giant. Slowly settling dust motes danced in the sunlight that was now able to reach the forest floor in the wake of the colossus's suicide. Of bipedal travelers and their accompanying quaternion of talkative trees, there was no sign save for some splintered branches and a mighty axe that, in the absence of its owner, lay useless and forlorn amid the settling debris.

After some time had passed, it occurred to Oskar that he was not dead. He ought to be, he knew. The last thing he remembered was the falling bulk of the kauri blotting out the light and then, silence.

Opening his eyes, he saw nothing. At that moment even heavily green-tinted darkness would have been welcome, but this was deeper than that. It was as black and solid as a wall. It pressed tightly against his mind as well as his vision. Experimentally, he tried wiggling his right hand. Nothing moved, not even a finger. He could barely flutter his eyelids. But his tongue flicked freely within his mouth, and a strong second effort allowed him to move his jaws slightly up and down. His limbs, however, were trapped in place. He could not even scratch at the confines of his prison.

The rest of his senses proffered only sketchy information. He heard nothing, but his nose brought to him several pungent, distinguishing odors. Primarily of cellulose, but also of sap and dust, of decaying mold and diligent insects. There was around him an overwhelmingness of wood. Extending his teeth as far as he could, he gnawed at the material that held him prisoner. Definitely wood.

Then he heard a voice, sharp and clear in his ears. Mamakitty sounded more positive than she had any right to. "I think we're inside the tree that fell on us."

"That's something of a contradiction, isn't it?" Smothered by the all-encompassing darkness, Cezer was subdued, but still defiant. "If that mother of all splinters landed on us, which certainly fits my last recollection, then it should have squashed us flatter than that old rubber ball we used to play with in front of the Master's house."

"But it didn't." That was Cocoa speaking, Oskar noted. "I can't move a hand to touch myself, and I can't see a thing, but I don't feel flattened. I certainly don't feel dead."

"You don't sound dead, either," Mamakitty observed. "Samm, can you reach your axe?"

The slow, even voice of the giant was reassuring as always, if not on this particular occasion especially encouraging. "I don't even know where it is. When the tree came down, I tried to jump clear of the trunk. Obviously, I failed. When I jumped, I threw my axe aside. Not that it would matter if it had been entombed with me. I can't move my arms or legs."

"So we're trapped inside the fallen tree," Cocoa observed. "We're alive, but unable to move. Breathing, but incapable of freeing ourselves. I'm not sure I wouldn't rather have been flattened. At least that would have been quick."

"This is more of Master Evyndd's magic," Mamakitty murmured knowingly. "It is protection of a sort I would deem peculiar, unless we can somehow free ourselves from these wooden bonds. Samm?"

"I'm sorry, Mamakitty. Even if I could somehow reconstruct my former body, I see not a single hole large enough to slip a worm through, much less my previous self. As for breaking free, I cannot move even a finger. This is no flimsy wooden cage that holds us, but a tree as thick and solid as it is huge. We will not break free by chewing at its interior with our teeth."

Cocoa's voice fell. "Then we are well and truly trapped here, to survive an unknown while longer until we expire from thirst and hunger."

"Maybe our four wooden friends had the easier way out." Straining, Oskar felt that his eyes might be adapting to the absence of light. Another contradiction, he scolded himself firmly. "You'll notice none of them have said anything since the treefall."

"Maybe they managed to escape." Taj was more hopeful than sanguine.

"I don't see how," Samm hissed softly. "The fleetest among them was not as quick as you or I." His ponderous sigh rippled through the dark wood. "I fear they'll be of no further help to us. Kindling makes a poor guide."

"What does that matter?" groused Cezer. "What we need now is a giant drill, operated from the outside, to liberate us. If I could reach my sword, I might be able to at least start to cut us free. But as Samm has pointed out, while our hands are not tied, they are completely immobilized. All we can do is talk. That will open only old wounds, not a way out."

Especially if I have to listen to your interminable bitchingand moaning until I expire. Oskar kept the thought to himself. Snapping at one another would only make an already unpleasant situation intolerable.

Silence descended within the imprisoning expanse of the fallen tree as a sense of utter hopelessness came to dominate the thoughts of the entombed. We've failed you, Master Evyndd, Oskar thought glumly. Not Cezer's elongating blade, nor the cats' ability to meld with shadows, not Samm's great strength, nor his own unique talent for inspiring movement in other trees, were of any use to them now. They would be mummified within the kauri, interred out of sight and mind of the rest of the world. No one would find them, no one would know what had happened to them, and no one would care. And why should they? After all, the adventurers were no more than common household pets who had momentarily been raised above their station.

For a little while, that raising had given them dignity and abilities beyond understanding. It appeared now that it was all for naught.

He was not certain when Taj began to whistle. It was a pleasant change from the episodes of deathly silence, and certainly more uplifting than Cezer's sporadic whining. Oskar appreciated the songster's attempt to lighten their mental burden. If nothing else, a little buoyant minstrelsy would help to raise their spirits. He would have thanked Taj, but he was enjoying the tuneful warbling too much to interrupt. Apparently, everyone else felt the same way.

Time passed, until a subtle vibrating in his ears caused Oskar to wonder if the inevitable loss of cognition, with its concurrent mental disturbances, had begun to take hold of his mind. As the noise intensified, however, he came to the conclusion that it was a real sound and not a deranged figment of his lonely imagination.

"Mamakitty?"

"I hear it also." Though careful and qualified, her positive response was heartening. "What it is I do not know."

"Kind of a wild, clucking noise," Cocoa ventured.

Cezer was not one to be easily encouraged. "But of course! We are in the process of being rescued by a giant chicken with an unquenchable taste for pine knots."

"Be quiet," Mamakitty chided him, "and listen. Or have you failed to note that Taj continues with his singing?"

It was true, Oskar realized. Ignoring his companions' increasingly vigorous debate, the songster maintained his steady trilling. Trying to find something in it besides the purely euphonic, Oskar failed completely. But then, except for an occasional howl at the moon more notable for its enthusiasm than any resemblance to actual harmony, he was no connoisseur of music.

The clacking vibration continued to increase in volume, leaving those imprisoned within the body of the fallen tree as apprehensive as they were bemused. What impending event could it portend? Of what significance was Taj's uninterrupted song? Between incessant warble and unceasing vibration, Oskar felt he might go mad. He would have given anything simply to have been able to clap his hands over the sides of his head, but his limbs remained imprisoned at his sides.

Something struck him in the eye with such force that he cried out. Instantly, a flurry of concerned voices reverberated in his ears.

"Oskar—! What is it, what's wrong? What hurt you?"

He swallowed. At least he could do that much. "Light—I see light!"

"Impossible!" growled Cezer. "There's no light inside this damned tree."

"And something else," the dog-man added.

"What?" an anxious Mamakitty demanded to know.

Oskar hesitated only briefly. "I don't know—but it sees me."

The small figure that was staring back at him querulously cocked its head to one side. Then, apparently satisfied, it resumed its work. So did its several dozen colleagues. The source of both the vibration and the peculiar loud clicking noise was now clear. It was the sound a woodpecker made while searching for the insects that scuttled about beneath a tree's bark.

Only in this instance, it was a sound generated not by one but by hundreds of woodpeckers, all working in unison with a unanimity of purpose otherwise unknown to their kind, summoned hither at the behest of a certain song propounded and somehow successfully put forth by a former master winged warbler named Taj.

"I don't know how I did it."

The songster was sitting on the rim of the great cavity the woodpeckers and flickers and all their multifarious, industrious relatives had made in the flank of the fallen kauri. Oskar relaxed nearby, engaged in the ongoing task of removing a seemingly infinite supply of splinters and sawdust from his skin, hair, and clothing. Mamakitty was helping Cocoa to do the same. Below them, thousands of sharp-beaked birds had exposed the bodies of and were working hard to free Cezer and Samm, who alone among the travelers were still imprisoned within the tree.

"You must have some idea." Oskar extracted a sliver of durable kauri from beneath his right arm.

Hands clasped between his knees, the songster watched his feathery brethren at work and smiled ingenuously. "I really don't. As you know, the Master was always fond of my singing. He used to try to teach me his favorite songs, but I preferred my own. My kind is very good at piling variation on top of variation. Stuck inside the tree, I found myself wondering what could get us out. A human would have thought about a drill, or a saw. A dog, maybe, about digging, and a snake about wriggling out a crack or a hole." He looked away shyly.

"Me, I thought about pecking. But canaries aren't very well equipped for that sort of work, and humans even less so. So I wondered who would be good at it, and what kind of song might bring them to help us." He gestured at the hollow in which woodpeckers swarmed like ants, battering at the kauri heartwood with their beaks. "And here they are."

Oskar's brows creased. "But how could they hear you singing through all that wood, and so many, from so far away?"

Once again the songster could only shrug. "To know that, you would have to ask Master Evyndd. But each of us has been given a little magic that is part and parcel of ourselves. What more natural than that my singing should be similarly so fortified?"

"I wish Evyndd had been more explicit, instead of leaving us to find these things out for ourselves."

Taj flicked wood dust from his boots. "Perhaps he felt it would have frightened us to learn of such abilities before we had spent time getting used to our human forms. Perhaps he feared that, inexperienced and clumsy as we are, we might have done more damage knowing about them than not. Again, you would have to ask him."

"I wish I could." Rising to his feet, Oskar brushed at his pants and peered down into the cavity. Cezer was almost free, while Samm's bulkier frame would require a bit more effort on the part of the diligent birds. "I wish he was here now, to guide us and help us, instead of leaving us to stumble onward by ourselves, suffering and learning as we go."

Taj's tone was unusually contemplative for the normally high-strung singer. "I imagine that the suffering is a component of the learning."

Oskar grunted. "That sounds like something a sorcerer would say. Don't let Cezer hear you say that. Our excitable swordsman is of a different opinion."

"And at the moment, of mouth." Looking down, rhythmically tapping the side of the wood depression with the heels of his boots, Taj could not repress a grin. "It's full of wood dust."

Together they watched and waited as the army of woodpeckers finished freeing the remaining two members of the party. Then, their work done, the ivory-bills and flickers, three-toeds and chestnuts, short-tails and long-tails, rose individually and in groups to disappear back into the depths of the forest. As for those inimical woods, they remained still and silent. Perhaps, Oskar mused, the ill-natured nature of this place was still stunned by the travelers' escape from the entombing gravitas of the sacrificing kauri. If so, then now would be an especially auspicious time to resume their journey, before the denizens of the Kingdom of Green could regain their wits and conjure yet another devilment to place in the visitors' way.

Cezer proved uncharacteristically subdued as he climbed out of the gaping hole in the side of the fallen colossus. No doubt, Oskar decided, his friend's term of interment had given him ample, if unwanted, time for reflection. In any event, his tone was conciliatory rather than contrary, and his sentences short on (though not entirely devoid of) the expected flurry of expletives. As for Samm, he was his usual stolid self. Used as he was to remaining motionless for extended periods of time, he had been less affected than any of his companions by the potentially traumatizing incident. Brushing chunks of woodpecker-pecked wood from his shoulders, he walked a short distance from the fallen giant to recover his axe, which lay where he had thrown it during his attempt to escape the falling bole.

Freed from their inscrutable wooden prison and gathered together again, they spent the rest of the day searching for their missing forest friends. Of hopeful willow and stoic oak, eager sycamore and unrepentant maple, there was no sign save the millions of splinters that formed a broken and shattered bed beneath the immense bulk of the fallen kauri. By unspoken agreement, no one knelt to examine individual fragments too closely, lest they discover bits and pieces of their former guides. It was not the first time Oskar had wept over the loss of a memorable tree.

Without anyone to lead them, they were forced to continue eastward on their own, using their shared innate sense of direction while trying to keep to the course set by the absent quartet. Oskar's conjecture that the hostile woodland had been left dazed by their woodpecker-aided escape could not be proven, but for whatever reason, they were not attacked as they trekked steadily to the east. No concussion-causing nuts came their way, no flying thorns, no looping vines. Swiftly upthrusting saplings did not arise to form an obstructing palisade in front of them, and roots failed to erupt from the bare earth to clutch at their feet. If the forest had not been left stunned by their unexpected breakout, neither did it act to further hinder their progress. Or perhaps it simply feared the threatening presence of the great cutting axe that rode on Samm's broad shoulder.

Then there came a day when the trees finally began to thin out in front of them. The pale green light ahead darkened slightly, turning a marvelous shade of aquamarine. In the distance they could see clearly the sun setting behind a bright blue sea, above which blue clouds hung in a cerulean sky. After marching for days between oppressive walls of green that might at any moment choose to crumple inward or otherwise assail them, the travelers were mightily grateful to emerge from their soaring company.

Of course, the sea presented an entirely new and, in its own way, potentially far more awkward barrier to their advancement. Oskar didn't care. Anything was better than being trapped among the troublesome trees and their inimical ilk.

"Behold the Kingdom of Blue!" Cezer declared grandly as he spread his arms wide. "For such it must surely be. See where the color change takes place midway between kingdoms?"

Previously, it had been difficult to determine exactly where one kingdom of light ended and another began. No such confusion reigned here. The boundary between the two was clearly delineated by the sandy beach that ran from the outskirts of the forest down to the water's edge. Where sea met land, there lay the border between kingdoms. The fact that it was in a constant, if placid, state of flux determined by the movement of the minuscule waves lapping at the shore did not trouble anyone. Certainly the trees that ruled the Kingdom of Green did not object, and if there were any inhabitants of the Kingdom of Blue who felt contrariwise about the continuously shifting line, they apparently felt no need to comment on the matter.

"We're going to need some kind of boat or raft." Advancing, Mamakitty pushed past an unprotesting young sapling.

Stumbling against a protruding root, Taj looked over at her more sharply than he intended. "I concur, but don't expect me to try and cut any wood for it. Not when the wood in question is liable to object strenuously to the action."

"We've passed many dead trees." Samm hefted his axe. "If we lash them together with vines, I'm sure we can put together a craft capable of carrying all of us."

"Fssst, yes—but carrying us to where?" Cezer wondered aloud. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm no sailor. In fact, I've never been fond of pond water, much less the ocean." He nodded toward the tranquil sea. "Now that I've actually set eyes on it, I'm even less enthusiastic."

"As am I." Mamakitty's reaction was not unexpected, Oskar knew. Cocoa mentioned her own distaste a moment later.

"Like it or not, we're going to have to cross it." Shading his eyes with one hand, Oskar tried to see across the water and found that he could not. Unlike the cat-folk, he was not troubled by the prospect of an ocean voyage. Like every dog he'd ever met, he loved the water. In this he shared an affinity with Samm. As for Taj, the songster was indifferent. It would be a new experience for him to have to travel on water instead of high above it.

Oskar was pondering whether a suitable dugout could be fashioned from a fallen spruce when the first pale coils exploded from the sand to wrap around him. Yells of alarm and shouts of surprise confirmed that his companions were under similar assault from beneath the surface.

Reaching for his sword, he looked on in horrified fascination as a pair of pallid wooden tentacles promptly punched their way out of a parent trunk to lock themselves around his wrist before he could draw the weapon. Though they might well have belonged to some fantastical sea creature, they did not represent an assault from the Kingdom of Blue. They were not soft, like flesh, but hard, like—wood.

Roots, he thought. Then he noted their smoothness, the absence of tiny cilia or branchlets capable of extracting water and nutrients from the soil. If not roots, then what? he wondered as the rapidly expanding tentacles tightened around him. He could not get loose; neither could he make use of his sharp-edged blade to cut his way free. From nearby, the book-loving Mamakitty (well, she loved curling up and going to sleep on them, anyway) shouted a warning that came too late. It confirmed his fear that the forest of the Kingdom of Green had not done with them yet.

"Strangler fig!" she managed to gasp out.

So that was what had surprised and overwhelmed him and his friends while their attention had been distracted by the newly revealed beach and the sea beyond. They were under attack from trees that even in their normal, natural, nonsentient state, were endowed with the ability to commit murder. Normally, the lethality of the strangler fig was confined to other trees, which it encircled and smothered from the ground up, eventually choking the host growth to death. Now several members of that quietly murderous tribe had been given the task of doing to the intruders what they would normally do to their woody brethren. The abnormal growth spurt the figs at the edge of the forest were demonstrating must have been in preparation for days, as the travelers came closer and closer. The deadly rate of growth was nothing short of phenomenal.

Oskar could feel the multiple wooden shoots swelling around him. As they expanded, they formed a tighter and tighter cage around his pinioned body. The pressure on his ribs was becoming intense. To one side, he could see Cocoa frantically sawing away with her knife. Though she still had both hands free to wield the blade, she was making little headway toward freedom. The fig that now enclosed her put on new wood faster than she could cut it away.

"Help, somebody, please!" That was Taj. The songster was in obvious pain. What denizens of the sky could he whistle up to aid him? Oskar wondered. It would take a thousand eagles clawing away in unison just to keep up with the stranglers' impossibly rapid growth.

One bulging bole was putting exceptional pressure on the dog-man's right side. When he tried to force it back, he found it was like pushing against a wall. Beyond his line of sight, even the always poised Mamakitty was starting to moan.

Could he influence these trees as he had influenced others? Desperately, he tried to repeat his actions of days before. Unfortunately, he was so terrified that his insides refused to cooperate. As he struggled with his recalcitrant bladder, he found himself wondering if Master Evyndd had ever suffered from a similar problem. He suspected not.

Where, he wondered frantically, was incontinence when you needed it?

Something snapped loudly. He swallowed hard. But if someone's bones had been broken with such audible force, he concluded, surely that individual would have uttered a scream before fainting? And if not bones, then what could make a noise like that?

Another snap and crack inspired him to wrench his head as far around to the left as he could manage within the limiting confines of his rapidly contracting prison. What he saw gave him hope, even though time was running short for all of them.

A massive strangler had sprung up around the largest member of their party. But as it contracted around him, instead of fighting the pressure, Samm had let his torso relax. Demonstrating a flexibility that would have awed a circus acrobat, the giant's unfettered arms and legs had wrapped themselves around the trunk of the fig. Now it was their turn to tighten, as the giant fought his assailant at its own game. What an awestruck Oskar found himself witnessing was a battle between two of the world's most relentless constrictors: one from the kingdom of animals, the other from that of plants. Both killed by contracting, by exerting relentless, unforgiving pressure on their prey, be it motile or fixed in place.

The sharp cracks Oskar had heard had come from the sound of wood snapping.

All those magical abilities the prescient Master Evyndd had bequeathed to his companions sprang ultimately from natural talents they had already possessed in their previous states: Taj's singing to call the squadron of woodpeckers, the cats' ability to blend in with and fight shadows, Oskar's special hereditary bond with trees. Now it was the turn of, not Samm the giant, but Samm the great constrictor, to squeeze back. As his increasingly put-upon companions cheered him on, the giant broke first one limb, and then another, and another, until chunks of shattered wood lay piled at his feet. At last unencumbered, he repeated these mighty efforts to free his friends, breaking apart one at a time the tentacles of the strangler figs that imprisoned them.

It had been a near thing. Mamakitty was in the last stages of asphyxiation by the time Samm managed to reach her, and Taj unconscious. Steady massage applied by a throatily purring Cocoa (massage being another specialty of cats, Oskar knew) helped to revive the songster, leading Cezer to lament aloud the fact that he had not been permitted to pass out himself.

"The axe would have been faster," Samm apologized when the last of them had been freed from the wooden embrace, "but dangerous." He gestured to where the imposing instrument lay resting on the sand. "It's not good for close-in work." Envisioning that massive stone blade chopping away next to his formerly captive flesh, Oskar could only agree.

"Everyone's okay, then?" As she spoke, Mamakitty was rubbing her upper arms where the embrace of the strangler fig had been particularly unforgiving. When the last of her comrades assented or otherwise indicated in the affirmative, she nodded tersely. "All right, then. Enough of the Kingdom of Green. It's time to build a boat! And remember as we work that we have only this last territory to cross to reach the Kingdom of Purple, wherein hopefully lies the white light that contains all colors, which we shall restore to the Gowdlands!"

A few weakened cheers greeted her attempt to inspire them. It was not that her words were lacking in vigor or animation: just that her companions were still too sore from the bruising effects of the strangler figs to respond with more than desultory expansions of sorely afflicted rib cages and lungs.

It was Cezer who was first back into the forest, and therefore first to cry out with dismay.

"There was a big fallen log here." He did not have to identify the exact spot where the bole he spoke of had lain. A long, wide depression marred the earth. "Now it's gone!"

"We can see that." Mamakitty was more puzzled than concerned. "It's all right, Cezer. We'll find another."

But they didn't. And though they braved a resurgence of flung thorns and whipping vines to probe ever farther back the way they had come, and even did some scouting off to the sides of their previous path, they found nothing suitable for the building of a dugout canoe, or even a raft. Every single fallen log had been removed, or concealed, by the forest. Unable to stop them, it had apparently chosen to deny them even the use of its dead.

"What now?" Taj would have sat down on a log had they been able to find one. In its absence they had to make do with sitting on the beach. "Do we make use of living trees in the absence of dead ones?" He eyed Samm's axe suggestively.

"It appears we have no choice." Mamakitty gazed hopefully at the giant. "Do you think you can do it, Samm? It would take too long and therefore expose you to too many attacks from multiple sources for you to cut down a tree big enough to serve as a dugout. So we'll have to use smaller trees and try to fashion some kind of a raft."

He shrugged broad, powerful shoulders. "I'm willing to try. But if the forest has gone and defended its dead so dynamically, I'm sure it will exert even greater efforts to protect those trees still living. Still"—he rose to his feet, brushing sand from his lower legs—"I've cut down plenty of thorn trees and nut-throwers already. It shouldn't be impossible to manage a few more." His soft smile was as unintentionally mesmerizing as his unblinking stare. "I can deal with a few cuts and bruises."

"Maybe you won't have to," announced a familiar voice. From contemplating the ominous depths of the waiting woods, they all turned to see Cocoa standing in the water. Quite a ways out in the water, in fact. One arm held high, she waved cheerily back at her friends.

"Come on in," she called to them. "Not only is the water fine—it's not even up to my knees!"