Kingdoms of Light

SEVENTEEN

This time, not even Mamakitty had an answer. One thing they could not do, it was generally agreed, was allow themselves to be confronted in their present animal form by the still unseen inhabitants of this kingdom. At least, not until they had become more acquainted with those as yet unseen inhabitants, and had learned something of the lay of the land. There were places, Oskar recalled Master Evyndd saying during their visit to the city of Zelevin, where animals unassociated with humans were rounded up and disposed of without a thought, like trash. While the attitude toward strays might be quite different in the city that dominated the Kingdom of Purple, they could take no chances.

Needing time to collect their thoughts, they decided to return to the beach. Oskar and his feline companions were glad to be back on all fours, and Samm could slither forward at a surprising speed. But of them all, diminutive Taj was the most relieved. In the course of the bewildering shape reversion he had gone from being the weakest and slowest among them to the fastest.

Skimming along overhead, he scouted the route back the way they had come. It was still devoid of citizens, still deserted. Here on the edge of the great city, it appeared, evening was not a time for visiting the border between kingdoms. Or perhaps they had simply been lucky enough to come ashore at a location that was little frequented by the inhabitants.

They raced back through the same arch that had admitted them. Back on the sand, the usually surefooted Oskar unaccountably tripped. He went down in an unceremonious tumble, head over heels. So did every one of his four-legged companions.

They were human again.

Spitting sand, Oskar looked up in response to a pained moan from nearby. Taj was sitting up and holding his head. It was fortunate for the canary, Oskar realized, that he had not been flying too high at the moment of remetamorphosis. The soft sand had cushioned the impact of his fall from the sky, and the songster was only bruised.

"If this kind of rapid transformation is to occur periodically," Samm surmised gravely as he brushed sand from his massive form, "life could become exceedingly confusing."

Cocoa's nude female shape stood silhouetted against the setting sun as she straightened and looked back into the Kingdom of Purple. "Something acted upon us as soon as we entered the city. Some kind of permanent enchantment that is attached to this place. If we go back inside, we might change back all over again."

"Then we have a new problem." Wincing, Taj rose. "I don't see how as our animal selves we can hope to obtain the white light. No one will pay any attention to the demands of a bunch of animals, even if we can make ourselves and our wants understood."

"The magic that returned us to our natural forms left us with the power of speech," Mamakitty observed solemnly. "If that is a constant, then we will be able to explain to the citizens of this place what it is that we want. No matter our appearance, we have to go and find what we have come for. Don't be so disparaging of your natural selves." Seeing the discouragement in their faces, she tried to cheer them. "There are times when cats and dogs can go where humans cannot." She nodded in Samm's direction. "A snake can explore small places, and a bird can give us an overview no human could hope to match. Two legs or four, we'll get what we came for—and leave with it. I've not come all this way to be dissuaded by something as simple as a little change of shape."

Taj stared at her. "You have a way, Mamakitty, of rendering the most profound developments as plain and uncomplicated as a morning's bath. It so happens that I hate that."

"But she's right." Burly and hirsute, a naked Oskar stood gazing at the arch beneath which they had so recently passed in haste. "If we can find friendly scholars within the kingdom, maybe they can revive our human forms permanently."

A naked Cezer eyed his friend thoughtfully. "Is that what you want, Oskar? To have this body type made permanent? To be a human for all time?"

It was a question Oskar, along with every one of his companions, had been forced to contemplate ever since the miraculous transformation that had taken place in Master Evyndd's dwelling. He thought of lazy summer days spent doing nothing but lolling in the sun, of burying bones only to extract them later, at leisure, when they had been properly aged. Of rolling in piles of leaves, or inhaling the scent of a wandering bitch in heat. He thought of all that, and none of it accompanied by a care in the world.

"No," he replied finally. "I'd rather be a dog."

"Even though," Cocoa asked him in a voice he could not quite place, "it would mean that we couldn't talk to one another again, and would have to communicate once more only through touches and smells, barks and meows?"

Maybe he replied without thinking. Or maybe he was simply voicing the truth of how he felt without considering other, previously inconceivable, possibilities.

"I would miss being able to communicate with the rest of you this way. I would miss the ability to talk. But dammit, I'm a dog, not a human . I like walking on four legs instead of having to balance on two. I miss my full sense of smell, and sight, and—other things. Maybe one day I'll have the chance to be one again. But not here. Not in this place. My home, our home, is the Fasna Wyzel, in the Gowdlands. If the Fates decree it, I'll be a dog there, and a contented one, but not until the evil of the Khaxan Mundurucu has been snuffed out and the color they have stolen is returned to the land. That much the Master Evyndd charged us with, and that much will I do before I worry about the matter of what kind of body I really want for myself."

It was quiet on the beach. Embarrassed, Oskar realized he had been pontificating. It was most unlike him. He would have wagged his tail reassuringly, but the one possessed by humans was not well designed for such animated demonstrations.

Mamakitty finally broke the hushed silence. "If we're going to do this thing, we'd best be about it. If we don't hide the clothes that we left behind on the street when we changed back, some enterprising citizens are sure to help themselves to the unclaimed booty. We might have need of those garments again."

A wary Oskar headed slowly in the direction of the arch. "Funny how quickly you become used to something like hands." He peered down at his fingers. "On the other hand, so to speak, I surely do miss having four feet to run upon. Having now spent some time in this form, it's a wonderment to me how human people keep from always running into one another."

Cezer paced alongside him, neither insulting nor joking now. "I never cease to wonder, my friend, how it is that humans can even stand, let alone keep from falling over."

"And without a tail to help balance them," Cocoa added, unaware as ever of the transmogrified attractiveness of her own.

This time they were not taken by surprise when, upon entering a short distance into the city, they once again reverted to their animal selves. Much to everyone's relief their human garb, which they would need again when they left the Kingdom of Purple, remained undisturbed in the same scattered piles where it had been abandoned on the empty street. As he watched his friends drag and push the clothing into a small opening beneath one structure, Taj reflected from on high that they were fortunate they had not entered the metropolis via a main thoroughfare, where their brazenly unclothed appearance might have attracted more than mere comment. It took all of them, working together, to move Samm's great axe into an open culvert.

Taking care to memorize the location so they could be certain to find it again, they gathered together in a darkening purple-stained alley to consider how best to proceed. Beautiful strange though it was, as they continued to advance deeper into the metropolis Oskar was leery of the towering purple structures and the distant sounds that reached them. Completely at ease in the gathering darkness, the cats and Samm the snake were less intimidated. Only the sunlight-loving Taj shared his canine companion's growing anxiety.

"Relax, Oskar." How strange, Cezer felt, to be walking once again on four legs instead of two. How effortlessly it all came back. "This is a place of beauty, not danger. I can feel it." He grinned, showing sharp teeth. "Cat-sense, you know. We're overdue to explore a kingdom that's not overrun with dangers." He halted suddenly, every muscle alert, yellow eyes fixed on a pile of wooden crates stacked neatly against one wall.

"What is it?" Taj whispered uneasily from above. "The danger you say you didn't sense?"

"No." With Cezer advancing in stealthy cat-fashion toward the crates, it was a barely audible Cocoa who replied. "Dinner."

The swordsman-cat leaped in perfect silence, his forepaws coming down on a small purple-gray shape that tried, unsuccessfully, to avoid the lethal furry pounce. There was a short, sharp squeak, a soft yowl of elation from Cezer, followed by a stream of invective that was as trenchant as it was unexpected.

"You blithering idiot!" the tiny voice protested accusingly. "You couthless furry imbecile! What do you think you're doing?"

"I—" The astonishment in Cezer's voice was plain.

A flurry of diminutive protests joined the first, shaping a miniature chorus of outrage. "Let go of him! … Are you out of your kitty-catty mind? … Who do you think you are?…

Release him this instant!"

Oskar and the others approached tentatively. The source of the combustible complaining was immediately apparent, as was the source of Cezer's incredulity.

Trapped between his front paws was a mouse. It was a perfectly ordinary-looking mouse—if one discounted its cultivated gestures, scandalized expression, and the way it was furiously shaking one finger in its captor's face. Surrounding it were half a dozen other mice, a pair of enraged rats, and one slightly somnolent but obviously irked vole. Tiny fists and feet hammered on Cezer's forelegs and flanks in an attempt to get him to release his captive.

"I think," murmured Mamakitty, "that all is not what it seems in this place, and that you had best let him go, Cezer."

"Let him go?" Though more than a little stunned by the nature of his prey's resistance, not to mention that of its friends, he was reluctant. "I don't care if he does talk. Dinner is dinner."

"I'm nobody's dinner, hairball-for-brains!" Despite Cezer's words, the mouse remained defiant rather than fearful. "Do you want my friends to call the Night Guard? Where are you from, anyway? You act like you just wandered in off the beach."

"As a matter of fact…," Samm began slowly, slightly slurring his ess.

"I might've guessed." Folding both forelegs across its tiny chest, the mouse glared at Cezer while tapping one hind foot impatiently against the pavement.

"'Night Guard.'" Oskar put a cautioning forepaw on Cezer's leg. "I don't care for the sound of that."

"Let it go." Cocoa had come up on the tomcat's other side. "We can always catch more later."

"You'll do nothing of the sort," the mouse declared firmly. "You really are new here, aren't you?" In response to Mamakitty's nod, the rodent sighed. "All right. I was looking forward to a nice, relaxing evening, but I can see that I'm going to spend it rebutting ignorance instead. Not that I have any choice. It's every citizen of the kingdom's responsibility to take new arrivals in hand and explain the realities of life to them."

Reluctantly, Cezer separated his paws. The mouse took a moment to preen and straighten his fur before dismissing his friends. "It's all right now," he assured them. "They're barbarians, but some of them, at least, have enough sense to listen to reason." As he said this, he glared accusingly at Cezer. The big cat growled menacingly but kept his paws to himself.

Slowly the gang of small rodents scurried or hopped away, vanishing back into the complex of crates. Squinting at them, Oskar now saw that these were riddled with neatly incised doorways and windows. Reasonably content with his appearance once more, the mouse sat down and considered the assemblage of cats, dog, bird, and snake arraigned before him.

"I'm Smegden. I was out for a breath of fresh evening air when my walk was so rudely interrupted." Again he scowled at Cezer, and again the cat ground his teeth and remained where he was. It was something, Oskar mused, to see a mouse scowl.

"This is the Kingdom of Purple."

"We already knew that," growled Cezer.

"How clever of you," Smegden responded without hesitation. "This kingdom is unique in that it is home to intelligence of every kind. All are welcome here, no matter how simple or low." It was fortunate he did not glance at Cezer as he said this, as the cat was just about at the end of his patience with this mouse, his companions' equivocation notwithstanding.

"All animals who arrive in the kingdom gain the power of unified speech. Humans who wash up on the beach or otherwise make their way here are reduced to their animal natures. This is the consequence of a protective enchantment enjoined by the kingdom's original inhabitants, the Folk of Faerie and Fancy. Ogres, imps, elves, gnomes, trolls, gremlins, faeries fine and foul, hobgoblins, sprites—whereas elsewhere they exist in intermittent conflict with one another, and under the burden of much disbelief in their corporeal selves—here they thrive together in peace and contentment. The Kingdom of Purple is a Utopia for all who have been displaced, be they animal, human, or enchanted. So it is for my kind as well as for you and yours."

Oskar looked thoughtful. "If it's such a paradise, then why the need for something called a Night Guard?"

Preceded by his whiskers, Smegden turned in the dog's direction. "There are always one or two malcontents, even in Purple. Anyone can have a bad day. Even an elf. Even," he added, this time looking but not glaring in Cezer's direction, "a cat."

"A cat who's still mighty hungry." Having come to see the obstreperous rodent in a different light, Cezer refrained from licking his chops. It could have been considered impolite.

"Cezer's not alone." It still took an effort for Cocoa to see the loquacious mouse as a friend and guide instead of a quick, crunchy snack. "How do you get along here with other cats? Not to mention hawks and owls, and wolves, and buck-toothed goblins. Does everyone become a vegetarian?"

"That would be no paradise," Samm hissed. "Snakes can't eat fruit. It's the pits."

"Obviously," Smegden informed them, "none of you has ever heard of, much less encountered, meatfruit."

Oskar gawked at the diminutive elucidator. "We've seen and encountered much in our travels, but don't count anything called meatfruit among the marvels we've come upon."

The mouse nodded understandingly, his minuscule black nose bobbing up and down. "Then it's time that omission was remedied. Follow me."

They had walked perhaps half a block, and traveled deeper into both the city and the night, when Cezer extended a paw. "Come on, come on—up on my back. Otherwise, unless this place you're taking us to lies right around the next corner, I'll starve to death before we get there. And if you say 'giddyap' even one time, I'll bite your greasy, naked tail off at the butt."

With a curt nod, Smegden allowed himself to be lifted up and placed on Cezer's neck. The blond ruff there was so thick the mouse had to use both tiny forefeet to part it so that he could see where they were going. Tongue lolling, a panting Oskar would have offered their guide the ride had not the impatient Cezer beat him to it.

"Turn right here." Smegden pointed confidently. Beneath him, Cezer remained a cooperative but truculent steed. Noticing Cocoa smirking in his direction, he growled warningly.

"If you ever tell anyone in the woods when we get back to the Fasna Wyzel that I was a mount for a mouse, I'll personally take an inch off your left ear."

She nodded gravely in response to this threat, even as her smirk grew wider still.

"If many of the animals here were people elsewhere," Mamakitty inquired curiously of their diminutive pathfinder, "what were you?"

Smegden shrugged very small shoulders. "Does it matter?"

"No," Mamakitty admitted. "I was just curious."

"Of course you are. How else could you be?" Without answering her question, he launched into a description of the building they were passing.

When the last lavender rays of the setting sun finally vanished, it was the turn of the nocturnal inhabitants of the city to emerge from their daybeds. Meows and whistles and hisses of delight arose from the impressed visitors as the ethereal beauty of the mystical metropolis's citizens began to manifest itself.

By their nature favoring the darkness, those denizens who now variously strolled or flew forth from their dwellings generated their own light. There were glowing faerie-folk who zipped to and fro on wings of membranous luminescence, heavyset hunched-over throgs and ogres who pulsed with the intensity of their respective gruntings. Effulgent gnomes soared high on the backs of cooperative griffins whose wing-beats flung loose sparks with every powerful downbeat, and sprites communed in clusters like bunches of prattling phosphorescent grapes. Within the omnipresent purple hue, the variety and intensity of color was startling, varying from the lightest and most delicate shade of lavender to a deep Tyrolean tint that was almost black.

The temptation on the part of Cezer, Cocoa, and Mamakitty to take energetic swipes at the vast plethora of darting, plunging shapes verged on the irresistible. They restrained their natural instincts, as one must in such a place. Indiscriminately swatting down commuting residents as if they were so many mindless fireflies would be a poor way to endear themselves to a citizenry whose help they might need.

A pageant of pixies puttered past them, all hummingbird wings and uppity attitude, one adult and a couple of dozen youngsters. One of the latter flew teasingly into Cezer's ear, causing him to emit a yowl of surprise. Before he could raise a paw to scratch at the offended organ, the adolescent flier had backed out to rejoin her troupe. The cat was not amused.

"Pay no attention," his Lilliputian rider advised him. "What else can you expect from a pixie?"

"I'd like to see her laugh like that after I'd torn her wings off." Cezer reluctantly contented himself with a snarl in the direction of the rapidly retreating aerial troupe. From between his ears, Smegden leaned forward to gaze disapprovingly down into one yellow eye.

"That'll endear you to the locals."

"How much farther?" Cocoa asked. Though she was as entranced as her companions by the nocturnal beauty of the city, the scenery had done nothing to assuage the emptiness in her belly. It did not help that their guide was looking more and more like the tip of a furry brochette with ears.

"Just ahead," Smegden assured her, entirely innocent of her envisionings. "Around this block."

"What do all these enchanted folk do?" Oskar wondered. "Being enchanted, I wouldn't think there's all that much to occupy them."

"Oh, but there is," their diminutive guide informed him. "There are old spells to maintain and new ones to propound, transcendental interstices to be filled and otherworldly gates to be oiled. Interdimensional portals need regular upkeep lest shards of the discarnate flake off, and the dry cleaners hereabouts are kept busy around the clock. All that ephemera and evanescence can't be kept immaculate by charm alone, you know. Everyone here has a job."

"Even you and your squeaky friends?" Taj asked from above.

"Especially me and my friends." Smegden strained to see over and through Cezer's miniature mane. "For one thing, spells alone aren't very effective against bugs. Even at their most cultivated, cockroaches are never enchanting. Tasty, though."

Oskar wrinkled his whiskers. "No, thanks. I'll take a bowl of nice, fresh carrion any day."

"You won't have to." The mouse gestured. "There's the Commons, just ahead."

Oskar had thought the vast forest of Fasna Wyzel the most beautiful place he had ever seen, and not just because it was his home. But the Grand Commons of the Kingdom of Purple surpassed in every way the ancient woods through which he had roamed as both pup and adult.

An implausible diversity of trees shimmered before them—not in the moonlight that was rising, but by their own internal lights. Though every tree-glow and leaf-light was a variation on the all-pervasive purple, they nonetheless managed to give the impression of being kissed here with gold, there with silver, and elsewhere with a multiplicity of shades the travelers had not seen gathered together in one place since they had left their home and fallen into the rainbow.

Within the trees played the nocturnal animals of the kingdom. No enchanted folk here; only possums and sugar gliders, bats and big-eared lemurs, a variety of snakes and frogs, and all manner of night-loving creatures.

Their guide directed them to an eccentric hardwood with three conjoined trunks. In addition to enormous flaring flowers, it bore on its branches long, thin, tubular fruit. Piles of this lay on the ground, tempting the travelers. Hopping down from Cezer's neck, Smegden implored them to restrain their hunger for one more moment.

"Don't eat that stuff. It's last week's droppings. Let me get you some fresh." Turning and craning his neck, he called up into the tree. For so small a voice, it carried surprisingly far.

A couple of sleepy squirrels appeared. Though roused from their hollow, they grudgingly complied with Smegden's request. Apparently, the mouse was a person of local importance out of all proportion to his size. Oskar remembered how quickly a host of the rodent's comrades had hopped to his aid.

Working rapidly and efficiently, the two squirrels chewed through the stems that secured several mature fruits to the branches of three adjoining trees. These plunged to the neatly manicured grass below and bounced a couple of times before stopping. Hopping over to the nearest, Smegden took a bite out of one end and chewed reflectively, a minuscule gourmet sampling the latest product of an entirely natural kitchen.

"Not bad tonight." He gestured at Cezer. "Have a taste."

The cat was reluctant. "Rodents are like dogs; they'll eat anything."

"Hey!" Oskar protested.

The swordsman-cat ignored him. "It doesn't look very appetizing. It looks like a vegetable. I hate vegetables."

"I'll make you a deal." A confident Smegden helped himself to another bite and continued speaking with his mouth full. "If you don't like it, you can take a bite out of me."

"Now that's a proposition I can wholeheartedly embrace." Padding forward, Cezer put one paw on the fallen fruit to steady it and bit down tentatively with his strong jaws. As his friends looked on expectantly, he chewed a moment, then swallowed. When he looked back at them, he was smiling as broadly as his cat face would allow.

"Tastes like chicken!" he chortled delightedly, and dove without hesitation back into the elongated pod.

Soon they were all gorging themselves, quest and questions temporarily set aside as they wallowed in the unexpected flavors of the miraculous fruit. The one Cezer handily devoured without assistance did indeed taste like chicken. So did several of the other fruits from the same tree. But those from its neighbor possessed the flavor of fresh beef, while the fruit of the third had a distinctive whiff of fresh fish. By the time they decided they had had enough, not one among them retained a flat belly—Samm being the most prominently engorged of all. Though he had fought to restrain himself, it was in the nature of serpents to eat until they could hardly slither. As for the decidedly uncarnivorous Taj, he had ignored the meat-flavored fruit in favor of the many seeds readily available in the surrounding grass.

Thus most excellently stuffed, they left it to Oskar to consider what they should do next. "We must take some seeds of these trees home with us," he declared, following a resonant canine belch, "and plant them in the yard of Master Evyndd's house. But that's for later. For now, for tonight, where can we sleep?"

Smegden gestured expansively—or as expansively as his diminutive arms would allow. "Why not spend the night here, in the Grand Commons? It's what many animal folk do." Turning, he indicated the lacy towers and spiraling buildings nearby. "Though seemingly capacious, many of these structures are honeycombed with small rooms and chambers fit only for enchanted folk—and sometimes the likes of me. You lot would not be comfortable, squeezing your way through narrow corridors while enveloped in thick odors most strange and peculiar." He trotted away from the base of the fresh fish tree.

"Here you can stretch out and be comfortable. There is plenty of room, the climate is ever amenable, and there is lots to eat. Your fellow animal folk will not bother you." His tiny face wrinkled up in a grimace at the memory of an unpleasant smell. "Who wants to sleep in a troll tenement, anyway?"

Cocoa eyed the florid paths, paved with flat-faceted purple gems. Overhead, a wry and tasteful assortment of branches scattered the stars while the energetic chatter of tree-dwelling animal folk began to fade with the deepening of night. The temperature had not changed since they had arrived on the beach outside the city wall. It all seemed so benign, so accommodating, that it made her nervous. She told their guide as much.

"Oh, piffle!" Putting tiny hands on bulging hips, Smegden let out a squeak of a sigh. "Very well, then. I'll stay one night with you." He did not try to hide his irritation. "Will that put you at ease?"

"Substantially," a relieved Cocoa agreed. Though he had said nothing, she could see that Cezer was silently pleased with the mouse's offer. Nor did any of her other companions offer an objection to their guide's continued presence among them.

It was something to see Smegden curl up, utterly unafraid, next to the coiled bulk of Samm, a traditional predator. But the powerful constrictor was stuffed like a striped sausage with pounds of meatfruit and was already asleep, digesting silently. Given the quantity of food the serpent had just ingested, Oskar was grateful that snakes did not snore. Choosing a suitable tree, he paced half a dozen circles before settling down at its base, nose to tail. Cezer went off a little by himself, as did Cocoa, while Taj sought a suitably cozy branch on which to spend the night.

Mamakitty settled herself down next to the disheveled dog who was their nominal leader. Oskar tried to ignore her unblinking gaze, but one might as well hope to slip-slide into another dimension as avoid the stare of a determined cat.

"All right." He yawned, suddenly aware of how tired he really was. "What is it now, Miss Worry-whiskers?"

"This Kingdom of Purple is a beautiful and benign place."

"And that upsets you?" Dog or no, he could still raise a querulous eyebrow. Given the amount of gray fur attached to the flap of flesh in question, it was a gesture of some substance.

"No. If we're ever going to find the white light that we need to take back with us, this certainly does seem like the place—just as we were told long ago by that otherwise disagreeable Captain Covalt."

"Then what's your problem?" He yawned impressively, the yawn passing as a quiver down the entire length of his body to finally conclude with a twitch of his short tail.

"There are questions we avoided in the course of our journey that we can no longer put off. Suppose we find it? How do we acquire it? We have no money, and if we did, it most likely wouldn't be good here. Assuming that we do manage to obtain it, how do we transport it home? How do you package light?"

"With a pouch made of moonbeams, maybe. How should I know?" Trying not to sound too cross, he let his head flop back down on his crossed forepaws. "Can't we worry about it tomorrow?"

"That's what we've been doing for weeks. But I guess it will have to wait one day longer. Everyone else is already asleep." Raising her head slightly, she searched out each remaining member of their exhausted little party. "It's just that, so near to the goal we've fought so hard to reach, I find myself more fretful than ever."

"Fine," he told her. "Fret all you want. But I'm not worrying about anything, including the future of the world, until tomorrow." He managed a canine smile. "That's an advantage we dogs have over cats and humans. We don't suffer overmuch from stress. Except for purebreds, and I've always pitied them." Turning his head slightly and closing his eyes, he shut her out of his thoughts. If all her kind worried half as much as Mamakitty, he reflected sleepily, it was no wonder felines had so many internal problems.

His last glimpse was of the affable Smegden, comfortably curled up in one of Samm's brawny coils, indifferent to the proximity of powerful, fanged jaws that on another occasion might have devoured him as easily as a whale would swallow an eel.