Kingdoms of Light

SIXTEEN

"This is it," whispered Taj. "So close to our destination, only to be crushed like ants." The Eyelid of the Beholder stretched from horizon to horizon, from east to west as far as they could see. There was no imaginable path of escape, and the songster did not hesitate to say so.

Only Oskar, possessed as he was of an indefatigable optimism, refused to bow down before the oncoming darkness. "Then we'll just have to find an unimaginable one."

"Oh, well-spoken, master of barking orations!" snarled Cezer sarcastically. "My guess is you have less than a minute to think of something before we are blinked out of existence." Standing firmly, agitated optic fluid swirling around his legs, the swordsman shut his eyes and prepared himself as best he could for what appeared to be an inescapable demise.

Mamakitty stayed calm and composed, even though devoid of hope. "And to think that we brought this upon ourselves. If we hadn't killed so many negwen and vrorvels, if we hadn't helped the thweens and allowed them to multiply so freely…" Her voice trailed away, lost in the eerily sonorous hiss of the onrushing eyelid.

As it drew ever nearer, it seemed to accelerate, though this was only an illusion caused by its increasing proximity. Cocoa closed her eyes, and Mamakitty turned stolidly away, but Oskar found he could not tear his gaze from the onrushing phenomenon. Then it was next to them, on top of them, and—over them. Despite his determination to meet his fate boldly, he flinched. The eyelid reached his head.

And passed over it.

Still crouched, he turned to follow the edge of the immense fleshy flap as it continued on its northward rush, blotting out sky and clouds. The illusion of all-pervasive size had been complete, so much so that the eyelid had appeared to be much closer to the surface than it actually was. There existed, at least in the place where they were standing, an air space between optic fluid and the underside of the lid some six feet in height. While this caused problems for Samm, who practically had to lie down to avoid bumping up against the fleshy barrier, everyone else was able to remain standing.

"What do you know?" Having opened her eyes to pitch darkness, Cocoa was gently jabbing upward with a hand, prodding the underside of the eyelid. The rubbery tissue flexed slightly beneath her fingers but did not otherwise react. "We're not dead."

"Maybe," posited Taj hopefully, "the eyelid will retract again once it has responded to the irritation caused by the thweens."

While easy to utilize, time is an expensive weapon. Unable in the absence of daylight to know the true passage of time, they were reduced to making crude estimates. Certainly, Mamakitty determined, a goodly number of hours had passed when she finally rose from where she had been sitting in the optic fluid and pointed, forgetting that in the darkness her companions were unable to follow the gesture.

"Our destination lies eastward. I took care to mark it well before the light was taken from us. By putting one foot carefully in front of the other, we should be able to continue, albeit slowly, on our chosen path. We have food and drinking water in the packs Samm carries, firm footing beneath our feet, and if necessary we can hunt for negwens by feel."

Cezer voiced his doubts about this proposed course of action. "I pride myself on my sense of direction, but I can't see a damn thing. A hamster could be making faces at me and I wouldn't know it. Sure, we could continue on the way we're supposed to go. But we could also become disoriented and wander around in circles until we drop."

"Have you a better suggestion?" she asked him bluntly.

"No," he grumbled. "According to the rest of you, it seems I never have a better suggestion."

Careful to stay within earshot of one another, they began to move, forming a line behind Mamakitty. Everyone periodically announced their presence to ensure that no one wandered off. In this manner they made progress, pausing only to eat, drink, and rest. But it was progress that, without any real means of orienting themselves, remained dubious at best.

"Light!" Cocoa's exclamation caught everyone off guard. "I see light!"

Oskar kept moving until he bumped up against her. Whether out of excitement or indifference, she did not object to the contact. "Where? I don't see anything."

"You wouldn't, lover of carrion." Judging from the sound of his voice, Cezer was standing slightly to the right and in front of him. "It's directly ahead of us, right in our path."

Taj strained to see. "Is it the eyelid finally blinking back?"

"Use your bird brain," Samm admonished his friend. "The light is appearing in front of us. Unless we have become badly turned around, that means it's coming from the east. Since it emerged from the south and blinked its way northward, if the eyelid was retracting, then any first light we detect should appear to our north."

"It's blue," Mamakitty announced encouragingly. "Naturally it would be blue."

"That's strange." Cezer had to squint, even cat-sharp vision needing a moment to readjust from the total darkness. "There seem to be multiple sources."

The pale blue phosphorescence advancing to meet them was not a consequence of any gargantuan blink. Instead, it revealed itself on a much more modest scale. It wiggled and writhed and was streaked with dark patches that did not glow. Though faint by comparison with daylight, or even the reflection of the moon, in the otherwise complete blackness it produced enough illumination to reveal the absence of eyes and the presence of teeth: short, ugly, serrated triangular teeth that lined the rim of a circular mouth equipped for gripping and sucking.

"Not negwens," Oskar whispered unnecessarily, "or vrorvels, or like anything else we've seen."

The nearest of the blue worm-shapes suddenly lunged in his direction. He had barely enough time to draw his sword and swing wildly, striking the serpentine blueness just behind a gaping fist-size maw of a mouth. Phosphorescent blue liquid fountained from the gash. Some of it landed on Oskar's thighs and feet. It dripped down his legs, flickering as if blue fireflies had been glued to his clothing. Gradually it faded away to become one again with the darkness.

Wounded, the surprised worm had drawn back. As it did so, another and then another, each equally lambent, equally grotesque, emerged from the granular surface underlying the warm optic fluid, corkscrewing their way upward from below.

"It's another kind of parasite that lives in the Eye. But this one lives in the body of it, in the flesh. Or in whatever it is we're walking on that passes for flesh. Our presence must be drawing them out. They must emerge only in darkness, when the Eye is shut." Having observed the attack on his companion, a tense Cezer had drawn his own weapon. "By the look of those fangs, I'll bet it usually preys upon other parasites."

"We're not parasites." Watching the approach of the ghostly phosphorescent blue shapes, Oskar held his sword at the ready. The blade pulsed with fading blue light from the blood of whatever it was he had cut. "Maybe they'll see that we're not their usual prey and leave us alone."

"Oh, let's bet our lives on that assumption, shall we?" An apprehensive Taj held one of his knives loosely out in front of him. "You march up to the nearest one, Oskar, and identify yourself. The rest of us will wait here so we can properly gauge its confused response."

One of the huge worms raised its forward half out of the optic fluid and began swaying from side to side, examining them with sensory organs that were not eyes. When it dropped back down into the supportive liquid, a second worm promptly repeated the scrutiny. Mamakitty counted half a dozen of them, each bigger and thicker through the middle than Samm had been in his original body. Much bigger.

"We've killed negwen and other parasites." Silhouetted against the wriggling inimical bluishness, she held her sword out in front of her. "We can kill these as well."

"Uh-huh," Cezer murmured skeptically, "sure we can."

Cocoa whirled on him. "Must you always be so cursed negative!"

"I'll be as negative as I please when it pleases me to be so," he shot back.

Goosed by a mixture of fear and anger, her voice rose precipitately. "Well, I'm sick of it! Stand and fight or shut up and run, but show some faith!"

His expression thoughtful, Oskar said sharply, "Do that again."

Taken aback, both curser and cursed glanced uncomprehendingly in his direction. "Do what again?" Cocoa asked him.

"Jump up and down violently," he told her. "Yell if you want to also, but jump up and down."

"Look here," muttered the swordsman, "she already curses me plenty. She doesn't need any encouragement from you."

"And you," Oskar replied calmly while keeping an eye on the advancing blue worms, "do the same. Mamakitty, you too."

The three cat-folk exchanged looks of bewilderment. "We're missing something here, aren't we?" Cocoa finally asked the dog-man.

"When you were shouting your angriest at Cezer," Oskar explained, "your hair was flying all over the place. When cats do that, hair invariably goes everywhere. Don't you remember? A number of Master Evyndd's visitors had to do their business with him outside, on the front landing—because of you three." Cezer eyed Cocoa uncomprehendingly, but a look of understanding was beginning to dawn on Mamakitty's face.

"That's right!" Taj chirped. "Oskar's right. I once heard a visitor say that there was nothing in the world so irritating and upsetting as cat hair." He waved his hands at the verbal combatants. "Jump up and down, like Oskar says. Move around, shake your heads, fluff your fur—what's left of it."

Though still uncertain, Mamakitty and Cocoa complied as best they could; running their hands through their long locks and shaking their heads. Reluctantly, Cezer joined them.

"A fine state of affairs for a first-rate swordsman: reduced to fighting with curls." Head bent forward, he pushed his fingers through his blue-gold locks again and again. In the phosphorescence cast by the worms, Oskar could see individual strands flying from all three of his feline companions.

A second worm struck at his legs, and he used his sword to repel it. The circular fanged mouth recoiled, then advanced anew; searching for an opening, for a route around the sharp object that was obstructing its path, for a way to sink its tenacious teeth into the soft meat it sensed close at hand.

Then the mouth contracted violently, closing like a sphincter. Drawing back, the worm appeared to hesitate, hovering before the tense dog-man.

And then it sneezed.

It sneezed so violently it blew blue goo all over Oskar's legs and feet. It continued to sneeze until it lay twitching and convulsing in the water, vomiting blue froth. Watching it, Oskar felt a tickle in his nostrils himself. He fought it down, successfully. After all, he had been forced to coexist with three cats ever since he was a pup. But having seen the violent reaction and consequent misery suffered by some of the Master's more sensitive visitors, he found himself almost feeling sorry for the carnivorous worms.

Excitement lent energy to the travelers' efforts once they saw that the limited amount of cat fur was having an effect on their attackers. How it was affecting the creatures they did not know, nor did they particularly care. It need not make sense to be effective. As he brushed out his long hair, Cezer marveled at the results. He breathed cat hair every day, and it had never bothered him.

It was certainly disconcerting the worms. In their aqueous environment, Oskar mused, the poor creatures had probably never encountered anything half so irritating. One by one they twisted their murderous foreparts around, thrust them forward and down in a powerful burrowing motion, and sneezed their way back to the depths from which they had emerged. Blue coils vanished, vanquished by something as simple as the tiny strands that caught in their throats and tickled, and itched, and scratched, and prickled…

Oskar hurriedly took a long swallow of soothing water from the small bag he carried on his back.

Look!" Now it was Taj's turn to point: not because his vision had grown suddenly more acute than that of his companions, but because he happened to be gazing in the right direction when the phenomenon manifested itself.

Off to the north, light had begun to reappear. It swept toward them as if an invisible hand had impishly accelerated the clock that governed the world. It was, in fact, caused by a retraction of the Eyelid of the Beholder that was both abrupt and unexpected.

But not necessarily, as Mamakitty was quick to point out, mysterious.

"It's the fur we've been shedding! Not only did it drive off the worms, it's irritating the Eye!" Whirling on Cezer, she suddenly grabbed his hair and pulled as hard as she could. His eyes blazed with anger.

"You stupid, mindless sack of rodent guts! What do you think you're doing?" He broke off. A grimly grinning Mamakitty had one hand thrust skyward, pointing.

"Oh," Cezer mumbled. "Oh yeah, right." Reaching out, he began tugging at her hair, tugging loose strands that would not otherwise have come loose by themselves. Nearby, Cocoa pulled at her own head. Oskar considered offering to help, but was not entirely sure his offer would be taken in the proper spirit. Instead, he stood back and watched as the three cat-folk plucked fur from their own heads and flung it skyward.

Their fur-flinging efforts seemed to be bearing fruit. The Eyelid continued to retract. Not wishing to appear standoffish, he pulled out a few clutches of his own hair and added it to the mix. Samm had no fur to fling, and Taj's would in all likelihood prove no more irritating than a handful of feathers.

They kept at it until the Eyelid had withdrawn, insofar as they could see to the south, completely. Once again, blue sky splotched with blue clouds shone overhead. Once more, the way eastward was open not only to access but to view.

"Let's not waste time here." Mamakitty started forward at a quick trot. "We don't know when the Eye will become irritated again and return to blink back blackness over this kingdom. We need to make the best time we can and the best use possible of the light that's been returned to us!"

"Everyone, eastward at the gallop!" Cezer tried to follow in Mamakitty's wake. "You can stop pulling my fur now, Cocoa."

She slowly released him. "So I can. What a pity."

The swordsman blinked. "What did you say?"

"I said, it's a pity that I don't have four legs anymore. I could scout on ahead and search out the best route."

"There is no best route. This kingdom is all flat and wet and shallow, like it is right here." Arms swinging loosely at his sides, he eyed his friend uncertainly. "Are you sure that's what you said?"

"Certainly." In lieu of four legs, Cocoa had been granted a certain suave volubility that complemented her conspicuous beauty.

"If the Eyelid comes back, we'll just fling some more hair." Oskar was exulting both in the discovery of their new collective power (such as it was) and the return to open skies and freedom. His strong legs strode easily through the shallows, carrying him forward.

"I'm not sure we can rely on that to save us again." As always, Mamakitty had second thoughts even about proven triumphs. "The next time we irritate it, instead of blinking away the annoyance, the Eye might try to scratch it."

"Scratch it?" A querulous Cezer gestured at the flat shallow sea of optic fluid through which they were jogging. "With what?"

"Do you want to find out?" she responded pointedly.

After giving this due thought, the swordsman made a conscious effort to lengthen his stride.

The Eye did not blink again. Nor were they further troubled by sinuous blue worms taut of body and sharp of tooth. Such was the inherent power of unchained cat hair. No negwens manifested themselves, nor any vrorvels, and certainly not any thweens. That was just as well. None of the travelers were very happy with the thweens at that moment, and might well have made a quick meal of any who had presented themselves.

They set (unirritated) eyes on their long-sought-after final destination well before they reached it. After the comparatively flat lands they had fought so hard to cross, the towers of the Kingdom of Purple were first a ragged dark line on the horizon. As they drew steadily nearer, these uneven outlines resolved themselves into a breathtaking vista of amethystine spires, weblike walkways, lofty buttresses, and soaring crenellated structures that sparkled like crystal in glorious lavender sunshine.

"At last." Mamakitty's pace slowed as much from exhaustion as wonder. "There were times when I wondered if we would ever set eyes on it—the Kingdom of Purple!"

"It's magnificent." Cocoa's gaze scanned the extensive skyline of the vast metropolis. "Prettier and much more developed than anyplace we've visited so far."

"Don't be so quick to bestow admiration." The long run through the water had been especially hard on Taj's slender frame. Despite his wary admonition, the realization that their goal was now in sight restored some of his spent strength. "It may look appealing from out here, but who knows what awaits within? It might be ruled by a murderous despot, or beset by a plague, or off limits to outsiders."

"And you might try keeping your mouth shut once in a while." Cezer was high-stepping tiredly through the water. "But you won't."

Taj shrugged apologetically. "It's my way. Birds chatter constantly, and canaries more so than most. Being recast in human form doesn't change my nature."

Oskar was not as ardent as his companions in expressing admiration for the looming wonders of the next kingdom. For one thing, he was too tired. His legs throbbed, and he was sick of being wet all the time. It would require an effort of will to avoid lying down and rolling luxuriously in the first patch of dry dirt they encountered upon leaving the water. For another, he could not make himself relax: not until they were completely clear of the salty, viscous, shallow sea that covered the Eye.

That blessed moment arrived soon enough. Ahead of them, a beach beckoned, teasing the expectant travelers into a final wild sprint. When at last they collapsed on the sun-warmed sands, out of the Eye and thus also of its multitude of parasites and threatening lid, they could finally rest. Even Taj, flanked by low purplish scrub, found himself overcome by the realization of what they had accomplished. They had traversed the entire rainbow, crossed every kingdom of light, and now found themselves on the periphery of the last one, within reach of their ultimate objective.

Provided that the lecherous Captain Covalt had known what he was talking about.

The indomitable Mamakitty was all for pressing on into the city, from which the muted cacophony of urban life echoed down to the beach. She was outvoted by her companions. Everyone was worn out from their long run. Even Samm had stretched out as far as his present form would allow in order to soak up the rejuvenating sun.

"This evening," Cezer told her as he lay on his back between two oddly entwined purple bushes. "We'll enter the city this evening. Don't you think we've earned a few hours of rest?"

Hands on hips, she stared sternly down at him. Cocoa reposed nearby, and Oskar not far from her. From time to time his body would twitch, and one foot would kick lavender sand high in the air for no other reason than that it could.

"Back in the Gowdlands, people and animals are dying," she reminded the swordsman.

The look of utter contentment he wore faded slightly. "I know that as well as you, stiff-tail, and am as sorry for it. But we can only do what we can do. If we push ourselves too hard, we run the risk of injuring ourselves, of damaging these human bodies we have been granted, or of making a fatal mistake not out of ignorance but from weariness. There are times, Mamakitty-cat, when rest is as important as food." He patted the sand next to him, on the side away from where Cocoa was lying.

"Lie down, why don't you, and for a little while at least, put your mind at ease—if you can."

Still anxious to be on their way, she hesitated. Then she sat down, reluctantly, and stretched out. The sensation of the fine, warm granules against her overstressed back and legs was not simply relaxing: it was positively sensuous. Against her better judgment, she allowed herself to be seduced by sun and sand.

Come evening, there was not one among them who did not feel better, indeed revitalized, from the afternoon spent lazing on the beach. There on the sand, they shared a meal that for the first time in days did not involve holding food and water clear of the shallow saltiness that was the Eye. Oskar didn't even mind the occasional grain of sand that crept into his makeshift sandwich of dry flatbread and jerked fish. How he longed for a bone, any kind of bone, to chew on!

The temptation, following the meal and given the sun's downward path, was to remain where they were and sleep the sleep of the just until the morrow. But Mamakitty would have none of it. She had struck a bargain and held her silence on the matter until evening. That time was nigh, and they would use it to make an entry into the city.

"Besides," she encouraged her companions, "if there are any guards on duty, we will catch them at the end of their shift, when their attention is wavering and their principal interest lies in relinquishing their posts."

But there were no guards. Every couple of hundred yards, a vaulted purple archway granted unimpeded ingress to the metropolis. Beneath the ceremonial arches there were no tall gates of wood or metal; nothing to bar travelers from entering or restrain citizens from leaving. For that matter, the splendidly decorated wall the arches connected, with its ornate bas-reliefs of contented folk of many kinds, was low enough for a determined visitor to scale.

Several much taller structures rose on the other side of the wall, overlooking both the city proper and the beach that marked the line where the Kingdom of Purple met the Kingdom of Blue. As the silent travelers wandered in through the nearest arch, they saw that these structures boasted porches that overhung the street. Strands of fine linen and embroidered clothing hung from lines that stretched from building to building like so many very personal pennants from the rigging of a ship. The cobbled paving they soon encountered was pleasantly dry underfoot. For this Oskar was inordinately grateful. He had seen enough of water, even shallow water, to last him a lifetime.

Or at least, he reminded himself, until they had to recross the sea of optic fluid that covered the Eye on their way back.

They had advanced only a short distance into the conurbation when he felt the hair beginning to stiffen on the back of his neck. The cause of this follicular erectation was twofold: first, because of what he was seeing around him, and second, because he no longer had that many hairs on the back of his neck.

Mamakitty was staring back at him. Staring back at him out of the eyes of a deceptively muscular, mature, female black cat. Prominent as ever was the white patch that ran from her nose back toward her left eye. Her ears twitched as she spoke. The hair on top of her head had been noticeably thinned.

"By the tail of the all-consuming Great Tiger, you're a dog again!"

"Look down at yourself," he advised her. "If it's a retransmogrification you're referring to, I'm not alone."

Murmurs of astonishment, agitation, and not a little fear rose from the group. They stood there in the street, all of them except Samm (who had nothing to stand with) and examined themselves. Without warning, without sign or sorceral signification, without dazzle of light or thunder of word, they had reverted to their antecedent animal forms. Their bulky human attire lay in limp piles around them. All that remained of the miraculous transformation that had been elicited by the Master Evyndd's passing was the power of speech. Unsurprisingly, it was Cezer who was first to employ it in his restored feline form. His familiar voice summarized the confused emotions that were racing through them one and all.

"What," the handsome, thickly furred, reddish blond cat ventured through jaws that had broken the back of many an unlucky rodent, "the hell are we going to do now?"