Kingdoms of Light

EIGHTEEN

Oskar felt as if he awoke only moments later. But though he did not know the duration of the local night, it seemed unlikely that it should vary much from what they had encountered in other kingdoms. Overhead, the amethyst-hued sun was shining with a clarity born of crystal. It was not the shimmering sunshine that had awakened him, however, nor any prodding or chiding from his companions.

It was the music.

And such music! It spilled forth from thousands of throats, all chorusing together, not one out of tune—throats capable not only of imitating and surpassing the songs of humankind but of reproducing almost any harmony imaginable.

There must have been ten thousand bird-folk awakening in the trees of the Grand Commons, and their joyous hymn to the morning was truly something to behold.

Birds of paradise trilled sensuously alongside dozens of smaller songbird-folk. Cranes and crows supplied percussion, while macaws and parrots counterfeited human voices as perfectly as if they had possessed hands instead of wings. The smaller birds provided woodwindlike accompaniment, while a rustling of raptors surged in counterpoint to the elegiac central motif.

Rolling onto his back on the soft grass and crunchy leaves, all four legs waving in the air, Oskar stretched and delighted in the majestic swell of music. Only after the magnificent overture to the sun had crescendoed and begun to fade, drifting away into the distance as soft as down from a newly fledged chick, did an exultant Taj glide down from his branch to greet his friends. He had been participating wholeheartedly in the concert.

"Did you hear it? Oh, did you hear, Oskar?" The jubilant canary hopped an ecstatic circle around an imaginary axis. "Wasn't it splendid? Wasn't it glorious?"

A familiar voice interrupted from nearby. "Doesn't this town let a visitor sleep?" Rising, a rested but exasperated Cezer stretched, digging his front claws purposefully into the ground, his chin scraping the grass between them.

"Always the complainer." Nearby, Cocoa had risen and was using her right paw to inspect a freshly fallen meatfruit. "Who's for breakfast?"

Gathering around a pile of suitable eats, they fell to discoursing freely among themselves while dining at their leisure. Smegden joined them, in no hurry to rush off before eating. Indeed, Oskar mused, there seemed to be no reason for animal folk to hurry anywhere in this relative paradise. What real work there was to be done fell within the province of the much more active enchanted ones.

"You know," mouthed Cezer, his cheeks bulging with the meatfruit of the moment as he ruminated reflectively, "this is a pretty nice place."

"Very nice," agreed Samm from somewhere within his coils.

"Exceedingly nice," Cocoa added unnecessarily.

"It's so nice," Cezer continued, "that we might consider staying here."

Oskar eyed his companion narrowly. "You mean, you might consider returning after we've carried the white light back to the Gowdlands."

Instead of meeting the dog's eyes, the golden feline contemplated the sky through branches heavy with lavender-tinged leaves and fruit. "Not exactly. I was thinking that this might be the most propitious possible ending to our journey."

"What about the inhabitants of the Gowdlands?" Mamakitty's tone was accusing, but Cezer refused to back down.

"What about them? I know all of this was discussed earlier, but that was before we had risked our lives ten times over, and long before we knew a land such as the Kingdom of Purple existed outside the country of wishful thinking. What if our luck is running out? How many narrow escapes can we reasonably be expected to survive? This place has everything we could want: free food that falls from trees, clean air, pure water, and industrious enchanted folk to keep everything running smoothly. It's more than a refuge; it's a kind of heaven. A singularly purple heaven, to be sure, but a heaven nonetheless.

"As for the people of the Gowdlands, what did they ever do for us? I'm sorry they're suffering—I don't like to see anyone suffer. But to tell the truth, I feel no especial affection for them. They're humans; we're not."

"You were once," Oskar reminded him, "and can be again."

"Why?" This time Cezer raised his gaze to meet those of his friends. "From everything we've experienced and everything I remember from my life as a cat, humans have a tough time of it." He spread both forelegs as wide as his quadrupedal shape would allow. "I'm more used to being a cat than I am to being a man. This isn't such a bad way to spend one's life. Of course," he added thoughtfully, "if I was forced to spend it as a dog…"

Mamakitty stepped between them. "That isn't the point.

We swore to carry out Master Evyndd's last wish, which was to aid those in need. What about that, Cezer?"

The tomcat looked uncomfortable. "Master Evyndd was a good person, even if he wasn't cat. But Master Evyndd is dead. We're not."

"So you think that cancels out the debt?" Oskar challenged him.

Cezer held his ground. "Spoken like a true dog. A fawning, slavishly affectionate, drool-dripping dog who'll cut off his left ear in return for a pat on the head."

Mamakitty spoke before an increasingly angry Oskar could reply. "There are among cats those for whom the word loyalty is not only for dogs."

Cocoa joined the discussion. "By my count, you owe Master Evyndd for about two thousand bowls of milk, a hundred and fifty pounds of meat, uncounted table scraps, assorted chunks of cheese, and enough catnip to stun a cougar. Have you no gratitude, no sense of honor?"

"I couldn't turn my back on the Master's last wish," Samm announced with finality.

Cezer glared at the python. "Do you even have a back? Oh, all right!" he hissed. "I refuse to have my honor as a cat impugned by a snake. But I think you're all mad." Turning, he trotted off toward a tree where some wallabies were playing ball with a coterie of meerkats and bonobos.

Oskar remembered the smallest member of their party. "Well," he asked the songster, "we haven't heard from you, Taj. What's your opinion?"

The canary pushed out his purplish yellow chest. "I owe Master Evyndd everything. If not for him I would be nothing more than a bird in a cage. I mean," he added quickly, "I would not have been given the opportunity to participate in so important a journey."

Oskar nodded, then looked seriously at Cocoa. "Do you think maybe Cezer's right? That we should put aside our task and remain here?"

She shook her head, as pert in feline form as it had been in human guise. "What kind of animals would we be if we abandoned the one important undertaking we had ever been given? Not by a master: that's only a word. Myself, I always thought of good Evyndd as a friend. A large, clumsy, ungraceful, but well-meaning friend." She nodded once. "I'll see this undertaking through to the end—for my friend."

"Spoken like a true cat," Mamakitty murmured admiringly. Pivoting, she presented her tail. Held high, the tip provided a comfortable perch for the smallest member of their expedition. "I'm sure that once we've located the white light, Cezer will realize where his loyalties lie and come to his senses."

"What 'senses'?" Cocoa growled. "The word doesn't apply to Cezer. Pfft! The only senses that cat possesses are base ones."

"Don't be too harsh on him," Taj told her. "This place calls strongly even to me." He punctuated his point with a brief but joyful burst of song. "The temptations are many."

She sniffed grudgingly, whiskers bobbing. "Then we'd best gather him up and be about our business, before he takes off after some flying scrap of paper or loose piece of string and we have to waste time running him down."

They found Smegden cloistered with a cluster of chipmunks, squirrels, and tree rats. Demonstrating that human hands were not required to carry out higher manipulative functions, they were playing a complicated board game with leaves substituting for squares and different-shaped seeds for markers. Those onlookers not actively engaged in play chattered incessantly—which, considering the characteristic speciation of those present, was to be expected.

As he moved a small oblong seed three leaves forward and one sideways, the aggravated mouse caught sight of his former charges. "Botheration!" he snapped. "Now what? Didn't you get any sleep?"

"Plenty of sleep," Mamakitty assured him. "In fact, we're so well rested that we'd like to see some more of the wonders of the Kingdom of Purple."

"What, do I look like a tour guide to you?" he squeaked in exasperation.

"No," she replied. "You look like breakfast. But I've already eaten. Can't you show us around for a little while? Just enough so that we can get ourselves oriented?"

Shaking his head sadly, Smegden turned his portion of the game over to the chipmunk squatting next to him and hopped over to confront his tormentors. "Babysitter to cats and dogs," he muttered irritably. "Snakes and canary birds." He sighed. "Maybe after one quick tour you'll be ready to settle down. And to leave me alone!"

"Maybe," Oskar agreed enticingly.

"Very well then." Impatiently, Smegden tapped the ground with one foot. Since Mamakitty already was serving as a mobile roost for Taj and since Cezer was not in the best of moods to serve as mount for a mouse, Oskar kneeled down so the mouse could scamper up onto the top of his head.

"Fagh!" Even though his scruffy steed could not see the gesture, Smegden made a production of waving both tiny hands in front of him as if to clear the air from in front of his face. "Cats may be more inherently wicked, but at least they smell better! Oh, well—come on, then. Straight ahead, and take the first right once we're out of the Commons."

For all his confirmed irritability, the acerbic Smegden proved to be as congenial a guide during the day as he had been the previous night. He showed them the Council Hall, afire with purple gems, where the Chosen of Faerie and other enchanted electors met to discuss matters of importance affecting the entire kingdom. They visited the stablelands, home to cloven-footed animal folk, where giraffes raced griffins and antelope streaked with makeup competed in high jumping against gravel-voiced jackaroos. There were well-organized facilities for storing food and water against the rare times of drought, schools where lectures in the fine art of thud-dunning were attended by gangs of aspiring adolescent ogres and trolls, and high-speed flying academies for the effervescent offspring of pixies and sprites, where pedantic dragonflies served as instructors.

And then there was the museum.

A structure grand even by the exalted standards of the illustrious Kingdom of Purple, it rambled off in all directions, adding rooms and displays, corridors and exhibits, according to Smegden, whenever it felt like it.

"You mean," Oskar remarked, "whenever the enchanted folk feel like adding to it."

Reaching down, the mouse gripped the hair above Oskar's eyes to balance himself as he leaned forward to peer into one eye from a distance of little more than an inch. "Did I say anything about the enchanted folk, bone-brain? When the museum is ready to grow, it grows. Do you think only flesh can grow? The museum is quite capable of supervising its own expansion."

Indeed, the edifice they entered breathed and exhaled uncomfortably like a live thing, the tepid air rushing systematically in and out as if it were wheezing softly, the walls quivering in response to unseen stimuli. For all that, it looked like an ordinary building. Oskar resolved not to pee on the floor to test the resemblance further.

There were hundreds, thousands, of displays, all neatly mounted and labeled. None of them, he noted as they explored the myriad rooms and trotted past other visitors, were particularly well protected. As near as he and Mamakitty and Taj could tell, there were no guards. There was no need for any. In paradise, there was no reason to steal.

"This is a wonderful place," Taj commented to their guide. "Is it, perhaps, some kind of temple? A temple that contains examples of everything that is, and everything that can be imagined? Perhaps even such a rarity as—white light?" Recalling the words of the unlamented but knowledgeable Captain Covalt of the Kingdom of Red, the songster's friends held their collective breath.

"Not at all," Smegden replied. "Are you crazy? This is no temple!" Behind him, Mamakitty sighed heavily, Samm let out an attenuated hiss of disappointment, and Cezer, sensing among his companions an emotional line it was better not to cross, bit back the sarcastic observation that begged to be liberated from his lips.

Smegden drew himself up. "Every citizen knows this place. It is not a temple but a museum. The Celebrated Grand Mystic Museum of the Exalted Faerie Kingdom of Purple. Wherein," he concluded importantly, "may be found examples of everything that is, or ever was, or can be imagined."

Unable to stand it any longer, Cezer stepped forward to say something. Before the first word could escape from his lips, Cocoa reached over with her mouth, caught one of his long white whiskers in her teeth, and pulled. The resulting look of shock and pain on his face was more than sufficient to forestall his incipient comment.

"When does it close?" Mamakitty inquired quickly of their guide, adding thoughtfully, "We'd like to get back to the Commons before dark."

"The Celebrated Grand Mystic Museum never closes," Smegden informed her. "Nothing in the kingdom ever does. It wouldn't be fair, or appropriate. There are too many citizens of this land who sleep by day and live by night."

"But the kingdom, the city, is not as busy at night," Oskar speculated innocently.

"I don't believe so, no." Smegden was not in the least suspicious. "You asked about white light. As I said, the museum contains examples of everything that is or was or can be imagined. Compared to some of the exhibits here, white light is of comparative insignificance." He sank deep in thought for a moment, then raised a diminutive foreleg and pointed. "That way. Second left at the first long corridor, right after the special exhibition of embalmed censors and petrified lawyers."

They followed the rodent's directions, trying not to hurry, fighting down their rising excitement. A few turns and twists past cases full of the inexplicable and on beyond the impossible—and there it was. After all they had endured, all they had survived, after the arduous crossing of multiple kingdoms of color, their goal gleamed brightly before them.

In an unremarkable room that was home to several dozen exhibits, there stood a tall cabinet of clear crystal containing nothing but glowing balls of color. All the colors were there, including many distinctive shades unfamiliar to the travelers. At the far end of the cabinet, almost as an afterthought, drifted a small globe of pure, unadulterated white light. Each of the diffuse, drifting orbs was clearly labeled as to its nature, pierced and fixed in place by a display rod that had been suitably ensorcelled.

Hopping from upcurled tail tip to head, Taj leaned forward between Mamakitty's ears and whispered, "The problem of how to transport the light is solved. We simply lift up the stick to which it is fastened, and bring both with us."

Mamakitty nodded, inadvertently forcing Taj to take to the air with a temporary fluttering of wings. "I wonder why the individual lights are not all tinted with purple. It's quite unlike anything we've encountered before on our journey, where every object and creature in a specific kingdom of color takes on the tint of that land."

"This is an enchanted museum run for the edification of enchanted folk," the canary pointed out. "What is the wonder in one more enchantment?"

"We have found what we came for," Mamakitty hissed softly, as much to herself as to her diminutive passenger. Beside her, Cocoa was staring silently at the cabinet of wonders. Even Cezer, confronted at last by the object of their quest, was subdued. Louder, she said, "We've taken up enough of your time, Smegden."

"Indeed you have," the mouse agreed readily. Once more the tiny paw indicated the way. "The quickest exit is back that direction, then down a ramp."

Mamakitty and Oskar exchanged a meaningful glance. "If you don't mind," Oskar responded, "there are so many wonderful things to see here. We'll just wander around for a while. We can always ask others the way out."

"That means a long run for me on these short legs, to get out of these endless corridors," Smegden groused, "but better, I suppose, than having to suffer any longer the abiding banalities of your clichйd conversation. If I hurry, I can still make the weekly hunt scheduled for this evening." He drew himself up to his full five-inch height. "Riding to cockroaches, you know." Effortlessly, he leaped down from Oskar's head. From the floor, he turned to confront the trio.

"I wish you a pleasant afternoon of edification, with the added hope that we may never meet again—at least until you have shed your provincial demeanor and developed some sophistication. Fare thee well, O bearers of a benign befuddlement." With that he spun round and, at high speed, scampered off down the corridor he had previously identified as leading to the quickest way out.

"What now?" wondered Cezer, reluctantly reconciled to pursuing their quest to its conclusion.

"We wait," Mamakitty whispered. "Mark this room well." When Oskar raised his right hind leg, she hastened to forestall him. "No, no—that's not what I meant, you idiot! Mentally, mentally! Use your human-augmented mind. At least, I think yours has been augmented."

"Sorry." Abashed, Oskar lowered his leg. "Old habits, you know."

She took a deep breath. "I believe the best time to make our attempt will be at eventide, when the daytime inhabitants of this kingdom begin to retire and before the awakening night dwellers arrive. That time of day should find this measureless structure at its most deserted. We will take the white light from its resting place and slip quietly out of the city. Having once passed that way, the return journey will be easier and less dangerous for us at night."

"You make it sound so easy," Cezer grumbled.

"Every one of those globes of light is pretty bright." Oskar kept his voice down lest he be overheard by a group of female faeries fluttering through the exhibition room. Stylish tiny purses dangled from their hands like pollen from the legs of bees. "If only we had some magical means of temporarily muting their glow."

Wings beating, Taj rose from between Mamakitty's ears. "No sooner said than done. I'll be right back with something I recall seeing several rooms away."

Risking the attention of other museumgoers, Oskar called out to the receding songster. "You saw suitable sorcery just lying around?"

"Not exactly." Taj called back to them just prior to banking a hard right. "It was a very nice paper bag."

And so it was. Retreating to a corner to examine the crumpled container without being observed, Oskar and Mamakitty determined that the sack would indeed fit snugly over the globe of white light. What effect the steady radiance would have on the opaque paper remained to be seen. Perhaps, Taj suggested, like so much else in this kingdom, the sack itself would be adequately enchanted for their purpose.

Feigning interest in every exhibit they passed, no matter how boring, they wandered through the labyrinthine structure, pausing occasionally to discuss this sculpture or that artifact with mock erudition. As the daylight began to ebb, so did the increasingly scanty crowd, until the corridors that sparkled with crushed gemstone spackle no longer echoed to the chatter of elves, the giggling of pixies, or the appreciative grunts of aesthetically discriminating goblins.

Taking a roundabout route, they worked their way back to the room that contained the samples of illumination from other kingdoms. Throughout the museum complex, faerie light was winking to life. As might be expected, it was soft and diffuse so as not to hurt the eyes of the nocturnal visitors, who had not yet begun to arrive in any numbers worth worrying about. As Cezer trotted out to the nearest main corridor to keep watch, and Samm spread himself the length of the room's entrance to trip up any unobserved arrivals, the others considered how best to go about expropriating the precious globe of whiteness.

"Back here." From behind the cabinet, Oskar's voice was an urgent whisper. "There's a latch."

It was a very simple, straightforward latch, quite uncomplicated and devoid of charm. There was no reason for anything more elaborate, they decided. Who would want to steal light? What possible use could anyone abiding in the Kingdom of Purple have for nonpurple numinous luminosity? Lifting the latch with his nose, Oskar put his shoulder against the edge of the compartment's rear door. With Mamakitty and Cocoa's help, he was able to push it aside. Lamenting the dearth of hands, but determined as ever, he cocked his head sideways and reached in to seize with his strong jaws the pole that pierced and supported the pure white globe. When he lifted the rod carefully out of its slot, the crystal display case caught the moving light and scattered small rainbows about the room as casually as a rich man casting alms to the poor.

"Look at the colors!" Beneath calico fur, Cocoa's chest swelled elatedly. "It really is white light, and it really does contain within it all the colors of the rainbow!" She retraced her steps as Oskar backed carefully out of the case. "It's everything we've come for. We'll take it back to the Gowdlands and turn it over to the wizards who still roam free. They'll know what to do with it, how to use it to break the curse of the Khaxan Mundurucu."

"I don't think so," an all-too-familiar voice declared.

Oskar spun around on his hind legs so fast he almost dropped the rod and the shining sphere it transfixed. Beside him, Mamakitty let out a furious hiss and Cocoa dropped into a fighting stance, ears flared back and teeth bared. He considered making a mad dash for the exit, only to see that that route, too, was blocked. The axe-wielding trolls who stood there might be slow of foot, but they would only have to hit him once to end forever any hopes of returning to the Fasna Wyzel—or any other part of the land of the living. One stood with a foot on Samm's neck, its sharp axe poised over the serpent's skull. Samm hissed in frustration, wishing for the great stone adze he had been forced to leave behind in the culvert at the edge of the city—and for hands to swing it with.

A grim-visaged ogre (was there any other kind, Oskar wondered?) lumbered forward. With a disapproving oink, it took the shaft from the dog-man's jaws. It hurt Oskar more to let go of it than it had to keep it gripped between his teeth. Exhibiting an unexpectedly light touch, the strapping sentry placed rod and globe back in the display case and slid the door shut behind them, nudging the latch back into place with a blunt forefinger as thick around as Oskar's leg.

Other armed and armored enchanted folk proceeded to place heavy hands on the intruders. As they did so, the voice that had interrupted the attempted theft, which had come so near succeeding, spoke again. It arose from a decidedly charmless ratlike individual who stood quivering with delight and repressed ferocity between a pair of dark-winged, gargoyle-faced night fliers. The speaker had a pointed snout, quivering whiskers, rust-red fur splotched with white spots, alert ears, blazing homicidal eyes, and teeth like needles.

"You'll break no spells, dead meat," snarled the quoll Quoll. "Neither light nor color will you return to the Gowdlands. You'll spend your time in gaol purple, you will, and by the time you get out—if they let you out—there'll be nothing left of the Gowdlands to save. All resistance will have been crushed, the last wizard expunged, and all rebels fled, dead, or missing their heads." Cackling gleefully, he pronked about in delighted, triumphant circles.

"After our last encounter, it was decided we should follow and watch, watch and follow, and bide our time. Please to understand, that's not my style. I like to tear straightaway into quarry every chance I get. But my colleagues"—and he indicated the two softly squeaking bats that flanked him—"managed to persuade me to be patient. So wait we did, until you reached your goal. Only when you were on the verge of winning it did we act."

Ruut stepped awkwardly forward, membranous wings luffing about him like wrinkled black sails. "We had been waiting for a good time to strike. Thanks to your actions, we did not have to decide. This is better—much better. Once informed of a burglary in progress, the local law came shambling with admirable speed."

Raising up on his hind legs, Quoll thrust a quivering forefoot in their direction. "All this time, all this following and waiting, and we didn't even have to fight! By your own actions, you've done yourselves in. All we have to do is sit back and take pleasure in the consequences."

That is what the trio of duplicitous devils proceeded to do, smirking as an elf of scowling mien pushed his way past the guards, stepped over the pinioned Samm, and confronted the rest of the accused. Resigned dog and choleric cats he eyed gravely. Noting the several large nets held by a number of the guards, Taj stayed perched on Oskar's head and prayed for an opening.

"You are charged under Articles XXVIII through XXXII of the Code of the Kingdom with multiple counts of attempted theft of public property, use of a public facility for nefarious purpose, conduct unbecoming guests of the Purple, and general felonious naughtiness. You are to be bound over to the Court of Proscribed Enchantments for trial and sentencing."

Mamakitty frowned. "How can we be bound for sentencing if there hasn't yet been a trial?"

"Procedures must be followed." Stepping back, the imperious elf gestured to the ogres. "Take them and see that they're properly secured. Make sure the bird doesn't get past you. I'll see to the necessary paperwork."

"Your pardon, meritorious sir," husked Ratha as the downcast travelers were escorted from the room, "but can we drink their blood?"

"Sorry," the elf replied. "Against city ordinances. But I'll speak to the presiding magistrate. Considering the help you and your friends have provided in this matter, perhaps something can be worked out."

Greatly pleased with themselves and the evening's evil they had wrought, the twosome of vampire bats alternately walked and fluttered at the head of the somber procession. In a fever of triumphant excitement, Quoll danced and darted back and forth in front of the crestfallen captives. The taunting of prisoners, evidently, was not against the regulations of the kingdom.

Only when all was once again silent within the exhibition room of multicolored lights of other kingdoms in the Celebrated Grand Mystic Museum of the Exalted Kingdom of Purple, save for the gossiping voices of distant strollers, did a small, compact figure emerge from the depths of the ornate Havetra'ng vase of spun spidersilk and regurgitated moonbeam where it had been hiding. Checking repeatedly to make certain that the way out was clear, a grateful Cezer fled as fast as he could for the pastoral, treed sanctuary of the Grand Commons.