Kingdoms of Light

NINETEEN

If they had not been under arrest, Oskar and his companions would have marveled at their surroundings. The interior of the Justice Building was fashioned of twinkling spun glass and limpid crystal, all of it vibrant with purple and lavender light. Preoccupied pixies darted down corridors while mercurial sprites delivered missives from one chamber to the next. Trolls conferenced in the darkest corners, elves engaged in slavish banter, and something like a squashed sphinx limped slowly past on all four legs, complaining mightily to an attentive retinue of sylphs whose sleek flesh jiggled like tapioca pudding.

The courtroom was small; barely large enough to hold the prisoners, their ogrish guards, a modest audience, and a goggle-eyed, multiarmed court reporter. Oskar, Mamakitty, and Cocoa were seated in the front rank of a triple row of bloated toadstools that sparkled with petrified dew. Next to them, Samm lay stretched out and splinted to keep him from making use of his powerful coils, while a dispirited Taj found himself, for the first time since their original transformation, back in a locked cage.

To make things infinitely worse, the object of their long, grueling journey sat glowing whitely on its rod in the evidence box at the front of the courtroom, within easy reach of the prisoners—if one discounted the presence of the brace of heavily armed trolls that flanked it on either side.

On a back bench, a quietly triumphant Quoll sat flanked by a silent Ruut and Ratha. Oskar growled in their direction, only to have their gleeful foe respond with a taunting, infuriating smile.

The nearest guard cuffed Oskar smartly upside the head and grunted. "No snarling in the courtroom. Show some respect."

Shortly thereafter, a door opened behind a toadstool of truly prodigious dimensions, and a figure appeared within. As it tottered up to the oversize fungi, a sprite clad in flowing frillwork appeared from nowhere to tootle on a small, cochlear horn.

"Hear ye, hear ye! The City Court of the Kingdom of Purple is now in session. His honorable and mystic magisterial elf self Judge Cooble Pilk presiding." A second, slightly less elaborate tootle from the tinny trumpet, and the sprite vanished.

Ascending all of two feet to the high chair located behind the commanding toadstool, the judge had extraordinarily large, pointed ears, a shiny forehead from which a few determined, scraggly hairs emerged, narrow, intense dark eyes, and the long, supple fingers of a courtesan. The lavender-whitish wig he wore spilled in carefully powdered curls down his back, onto the floor, and beyond, stretching several feet in two directions. No book lay open before him, nor was a gavel of any kind close at hand. Pushing out his hairy lower lip and glaring importunately at the unhappy prisoners, he folded his hands and leaned forward, his elbows resting on the curved, slightly flexible surface of the toadstool.

"Well? Do you have anything to say before I pronounce sentence?" From the back of the room, one of the bats snickered loudly.

"Now wait a minute!" Mamakitty would have sprung forward had not she been yanked back onto the bench by the ogre that stood behind her. She struggled to remain calm. "What kind of a trial is this? You haven't even heard any evidence yet!"

"Don't need to," the Honorable Cooble Pilk snorted. "Waste of time, evidence. You lot were caught trying to steal an exhibit from the museum of the kingdom." With a hirsute hand he indicated the silently pulsating globe of white light posted in the nearby evidence box. "That exhibit. Terrible business, terrible. Why, if everyone started helping themselves to exhibits, pretty soon all the kingdom would have left is an empty, unhappy building. Have you ever seen a building cry? Especially one the size of the Grand Glorious Multitudinous … uh, the Gigantic Inconceivable Miraculous … clerk?" he snapped irritably.

"The Celebrated Grand Mystic Museum of the Exalted Kingdom of Purple, your honored necromancy, sir." The multiarmed court reporter goggled its eyes a little more than usual.

Wagging his tail anxiously, Oskar slipped off the bench to which the defendants were confined. The guard behind him tensed, but let him stand on all fours. "Aren't you even curious to know why we tried to take the globe of white light?"

Hacking up something decidedly unenchanted, the judge spat into an unseen but resonant spittoon. "Not particularly. But I have this sinking feeling that you're going to tell me anyway."

Aided in emphasis and detail by Mamakitty, Oskar proceeded to relate the history of their travels, beginning with the assault on the Gowdlands by the Totumakk Horde, the curse that had subsequently been laid by the horrific Khaxan Mundurucu, and their own efforts, following their transformation by a posthumous spell of the wizard Susnam Evyndd, to find and acquire some light containing all colors to bring back home.

The Honorable Cooble Pilk listened tolerantly to every word. When Oskar finally concluded with a deferential, "That's all, Your Honor," and sat back on his woolly haunches, the magistrate appeared to have fallen into deep contemplation.

Appearances can be deceiving, however.

"If you've finished, we can get on with this. I have a game at three. I'm playing with two nymphs and a senior gremlin. Nymphs don't like to be kept waiting." He smiled tersely. "I don't like to keep nymphs waiting."

This time, Mamakitty slid slowly off the bench, mindful of the massive ogre standing behind her. When she tried to approach the judicial toadstool, however, it reached out to grip her upcurving tail in massive fingers, holding her back.

"Your Honor," she pleaded, "everything we've done has been on behalf of others. I know we were wrong to try and take the white light, but we weren't doing it for ourselves. It was only for all those whose lives have been made unbearable by the Mundurucu!"

"Not all lives have been made miserable!" a gleeful Quoll called out from the back of the chamber.

Mildly annoyed, the presiding elf focused his gaze in the direction of the outburst. "Silence in the court! I'll tolerate no unsolicited comments from spectators." Returning his attention to the attentive prisoners, his thick eyebrows lowered until they cast perceptible shade across his prominent nose.

"Theft is theft and the law is the law. Why, without the law we'd be no better than mortals, subject to the whims of ordinary existence. Benign motive is no excuse." Bringing both hands together sharply, he demonstrated why the presence of a gavel was unnecessary in the courtroom. A petite sonic boom rattled the chamber, ruffling the cats' fur, lifting Taj's feathers, and even knocking the hulking ogre and troll guards back a step or two.

"The sentence is death, to be carried out at a place of execution three days hence." Rising, his curly wig of office swirling about him like a pair of penned serpents, he turned to exit the courtroom. The trial was at an end.

From the back of the chamber rose a vile, cackling whoop of quollish satisfaction. Leaning toward her mate, Ratha whispered delightedly, "The Khaxan Mundurucu will be pleased." Mamakitty, Cocoa, Taj, and Samm were too stunned to speak.

Not Oskar. Advancing on the toadstool, he dodged the grasping hand of the troll stationed on his left. "Sir, Your Honor! You can't—I mean, this isn't about us! It's about our purpose, our mission to save others! No matter what you think of us and our actions, surely you can't just dismiss the misery of thousands of other suffering beings with a wave of your hand?"

The Honorable Cooble Pilk paused and looked back. "I didn't wave. I distinctly remember not waving. There being no one to speak on your behalf save yourselves, who are already condemned by your actions, I see no reason to reconsider my decision."

"But there are others!" a voice cried.

Everyone in the chamber turned toward the entrance; prisoners, guards, and momentarily victorious allies of the Mundurucu alike. Striding boldly through the diaphanous doorway was an agitated cat wearing a mouse on its head. They were accompanied by a troika of exceedingly well-turned-out gnomes.

Mamakitty's whiskers curved so far upward they almost pointed at the ceiling. Nearby, Oskar had begun to bark uncontrollably. Cocoa's eyes shone with a new inner light, Taj was bouncing excitedly up and down on the perch within his cage, and Samm's flicking, sensitive, unsplinted tongue caught the scent of something welcome and familiar in the air of the courtroom. Leaning to her left, Mamakitty whispered softly to Oskar, her quivering whiskers almost touching his muzzle.

"I knew the selfish little show-off wouldn't abandon us! No matter how much he rambled on about liking this place."

Oskar looked down over his nose at her. "You knew? Hey, what's that in your eye?"

"Nothing, dog-breath. Mind your own business." She turned back to the front of the courtroom. "Anyway, don't you know cats can't cry?"

Each gnome carried beneath his left arm a small briefcase, sewn from tanned snowflake. There was nothing in them, but in the kingdom of enchantment, appearances are important. Approaching the bench, the middle gnome spoke for his colleagues as well as for himself.

"Horglum, Grugle, and Migwig, Your Honor. Counselors for the defense."

Folding his enormous ears forward so that they momentarily covered his face, the judge let out a high-pitched gargle of resignation. By the time these impressive organs of hearing had relaxed back into their normal positions, he had reluctantly resumed his seat behind the imposing toadstool. "What is this?" Whiskers quivering violently, a furious Quoll rose on hind legs at the back of the chamber. "You've already pronounced sentence! The trial is over!"

"No trial is over until I say it's over!" Leaping to the top of the toadstool rostrum, the Honorable Cooble Pilk clapped his hands in Quoll's direction. The resultant sonic boom blew quoll and bats up against the back wall, where they remained flattened and motionless, as if glued in place. "You'll stay like that until this is over with. By Titania's tush, I'll have order in this courtroom!" Muttering to himself, he hopped back down into his chair, straightening his imposing wig as he resumed his seat. "Vex and hex the general public, anyway! Always interrupting. Especially when an elf has a game upcoming." Settling himself, he glowered unhappily at the trio of gnomish attorneys.

"Snap to it, gentlebeings. This court is in a hurry." Though thoroughly bewildered and able to understand nary a word of the esoteric enchanted legalese articulated by the three gnomes, Oskar allowed himself to feel a surge of hope. Whatever the meaning of the gibberish they were spouting, the impish advocates were certainly pouring it on with enthusiasm. Even the guards were impressed—or as impressed as dim-witted ogres and trolls could be. Almost as important to Oskar as this formal defense was the kittenish grin of his friend Cezer. The tomcat had strode forward to rejoin them, his four-legged stride more strut than saunter. Once more, the dedicated band of travelers was together. As for their minuscule savior Smegden, he appeared to find the entire proceedings almost as much a waste of time as did the judge.

"Hi, rat-breath," Oskar murmured to Cezer as the male cat sat down beside him on his blond haunches. "Hello, piddle-pants. How's it going?" "Better, now. What brings you here? Miss me?" The tomcat spat derisively. "Like I'd miss being locked in a bath."

"I thought you'd run off to stuff your feline face full of meatfruit in the oh-so-accommodating Commons."

Daintily, Cezer raised his left foreleg and began to lick the underside of his paw. "No, thanks. I had my fill of paradise." Oskar was panting softly. "And what did you decide about it?"

Deigning to glance in the dog's direction, Cezer replied curtly, "It's boring," and resumed cleaning his other forefoot.

It was growing late when the Honorable Cooble Pilk finally threw up his hairy hands and part of his lunch in frustration.

"Enough already! At this rate we'll be here till the End of Faerie. Not to mention that I'll miss the second half of my game. Noble but long-winded barristers, I implore you—step back, if you please." Clutching their briefcases to their chests like shields, Horglum, Grugle, and Migwig were quick to comply.

"Theft is theft. The conviction stands," the judge declaimed. From the rear wall of the chamber, a spread-eagled Quoll snarled satisfaction while the pair of vampire bats flanking him like mounted butterflies squeaked delightedly. "However, bearing in mind the energetic defense mounted by this most distinguished team of nit-picking obfuscators"—the legal trio bowed appreciatively—"I have determined to reduce the sentence."

From where he was seated, Oskar looked up hopefully. Beside him, Mamakitty leaned forward, the twitching of her tail stilled. Everyone eyed the judge in expectant silence.

"I, the Right Honorable Judge Cooble Pilk, senior magistrate of the exceedingly superior court of the Kingdom of Purple, do hereby order that the prisoners be banished forever from the Kingdom of Purple and the Realms of Faerie back to their revoltingly commonplace place of residence, there to be released into exile with the promise never to return."

The courtroom dissolved into chaos.

A joyful Mamakitty rose to wrap her legs around a wide-eyed, disbelieving Cocoa. Taj let out a piercing whistle of delight. An excited Oskar began barking wildly. Disputatious spectators leaped from their seats to exchange harsh words and energetic blows. Peeling himself off the back wall with a tremendous effort of will, the outraged Quoll snatched a knife from a startled troll. Holding it firmly in his mouth, he darted forward, heading straight for Mamakitty. The incredible energy and natural agility of his kind saw him sprint through the flailing grasp of several massive but sluggish guards.

Raising both hands, Judge Cooble Pilk proceeded to execute the sentence he had just pronounced. Faerie lightning crackled around his wrinkled brow and hovered above the tips of his prominent ears. Rising from the floor, the two lengths of his gargantuan powdered wig hovered above and behind him like a pair of gigantic lavender antennae. A roaring filled Oskar's ears, and a singular pressure blocked his sinuses, as if he had suddenly become trapped underwater. Out of the corner of an eye he saw the snarling Quoll leap, the tip of the knife held between his jaws aimed at Mamakitty's throat. Smegden let out a warning squeak as Cocoa had the presence of mind to take up the handle of Taj's cage between her teeth.

At the same time, Samm struck. Having quietly bided his time, the great serpent burst his constraining splints with a show of power only a fully grown python could muster. His jaws parted wide as his blunt head shot through the air toward the flying Quoll—and past the raging, apoplectic animal, to snatch up in his teeth the rod in the evidence box on which was transfixed a softly pulsing sphere of concentrated white light. Dazed and benumbed, Oskar thought he heard both bats squeal out a startled "No!" from the back of the courtroom.

Then the numbness overwhelmed him, nausea curdled the contents of his stomach, and something cold washed over his face. Suddenly, he couldn't breathe.

Kicking frantically, he burst free of the smothering dampness, his head exploding through the surface of the swirling pool of clear, cold water that lay at the base of the Shalouan Falls. Spitting out water, sputtering at the unexpected icy contact, he began to dog-paddle toward the rocky shore, shaking his head and sending sparkling droplets flying from the ends of his long hair. He was back home and alive, but something had changed. When he reached, exhausted, for the first projecting rocks of the shoreline, he realized immediately what had happened.

In the instant of being banished by the Really Impressively Irritable Honorable Judge Cooble Pilk from the Kingdom of Purple to their homeland, they had reverted back to the exact same enchanted forms they had inhabited on the day they had left it.

Like it or not, he was human again.

He was also naked, and seriously waterlogged. Searching his immediate surroundings, he saw his companions pulling themselves out of the river onto the damp, mist-slickened rocks to the left of the falls. Ravishingly long-legged Cocoa was wringing water out of her hair. Taj stood nearby, shouting and gesturing to him as the songster picked pieces of broken metal cage off his shoulders. Oskar waved back and called out that he was okay, even though he was not sure he could be heard above the roaring of the falls.

"That worked out Very well, I think," Taj told him when the latter joined the rest of the group. "Everything happened so fast, I was worried that one or two of us might have been overlooked. But the judge was very thorough."

"Didn't want to be late for his game," Cezer remarked from nearby. "I don't think I'd like to play with him."

Tilting back his head, Oskar looked upward, squinting against the leaden but welcome sunshine. Though dominated by the omnipresent drabness that had been imposed by the Mundurucu, the daylight in which they now found themselves was a welcome change from all the monocolored alien skies they had trekked beneath during the past weeks. Before them, the permanent rainbow born of the falls still bloomed with vibrant color, a beacon of normality shining forth in the midst of an otherwise all-pervasive grayness.

A sudden thought made him look around sharply. "Where's Samm?"

"Over here!" Emerging from the woods that filled the canyon, the dour giant waved encouragingly. In his huge right hand rested the radiant orb of white light from the Celebrated Grand Mystic Museum of the Exalted Kingdom of Purple. Oskar's heart leaped.

"You got away with it!"

Joining them, the giant nodded slowly, looking slightly abashed. "I fixated on it the instant we entered the courtroom. I was waiting for the right moment to strike, hoping I might be able to slip into a drain hole or a gutter with it. Then the judge changed our sentence, and everything went crazy at once." Holding the globe high, he squinted at the precious luminosity. "I was afraid I might swallow it. The instant I changed back to this shape, I spit it out into a hand. Handy things to have, hands."

They gazed in silence at the lambent sphere. Now that they were back home, or nearly so, each of the travelers was more than a little awed at what they had accomplished. It was Cezer who, a little self-consciously, broke the reverie.

"All right—we've done the thing. What do we do now?"

Cocoa frowned at him. "What do you mean? We've gone through the rainbow, crossed all the kingdoms of light, and brought back the essence of white light the Master enjoined us to find."

He nodded agreeably. "So we have. And now that we have, what do we do with it? Does it go into a stew, or some kind of potion? Are there special words that need to be pronounced over it before anything happens?" He indicated the enveloping grayness that surrounded them. "Clearly, it doesn't do anything by itself. Just bringing it back here isn't enough. Something more has to be done. Something's lacking."

A slight but mellifluous whistle turned them all in the same direction. It was a very familiar whistle, even though they were used to hearing it emerge from an avian throat.

Taj looked embarrassed as he gazed back at his friends and companions. His voice was characteristically subdued, yet somehow confident. He met their curious stares without flinching. "I'm afraid—there's something I haven't told you. It is a matter of some significance."

Cezer's eyes rolled upward. Cocoa looked puzzled, while Mamakitty's curiosity lent an unforced stiffness to her words.

"What is it now, Taj?"

"It's just that—well, I'm not exactly entirely who I appear to be." Though strengthening, his voice remained low-key as ever. "My full name is Tajek of the Gold Flame. I am also known as Tajekafen ben-Arubar, Associate of the Faith Necromantic, Anointed Assistant Alchemical, Odosa—officially designated ordained sortilege affiliate. In more everyday terms, in other words, the Master Susnam Evyndd's canonical, dedicated, and long-time familiar."

"Oohhh," whispered a reverential Cocoa.

Cezer was rather less impressed. "That's an awful lot of title to carry for someone who spends his normal existence as a very small and conspicuously inconsequential songbird."

Taj shifted his attention to the naked swordsman. It appeared to Cezer that something flickered in the back of the smaller man's eyes—no doubt a trick of the shifting, deceptive light that prevailed near the falls.

"Consider, friend Cezer, my condition and position a credit to Master Evyndd's limitless forethought. When he received visitors and wished to know what they were saying outside his presence, I was there to listen and record—between songs, of course. When he was executing a spell and needed help, but desired to appear as if he alone was performing the necessary machinations, I was present in the background to provide the required assistance." He looked over at a thoroughly dumbfounded Oskar.

"When he needed a second pair of eyes, or someone to watch over his belongings when he was not present, I was there. Why else, Oskar, do you think he sometimes took me with him on his journeys and not you or Mamakitty? Whether at home or away, others would assume I was present to provide my gift of song. When striving to identify a sorcerer's possible familiar, with three cats and a snake in house, what enemy would give a thought to a canary?"

"Not I, certainly," Cezer sniffed. Sniffing disdainfully was more effective with a cat nose, the swordsman lamented.

"None of us would." Mamakitty was wary, but impressed. "I often wondered why Master Evyndd did not anoint one of us his familiar. That is a question now answered: he already had one."

Taj nodded solemnly. "I regret to say that you three cats, together with you, Samm, were present in the Master's household not merely for company but also to serve as decoys. Anyone wishing to destroy the knowledge and wisdom of Susnam Evyndd would also take care to eliminate any familiars. As I have pointed out, the Master thought it doubtful any angry adversary would take the time or trouble to bother with a small, inoffensive bird."

"A decoy." Cezer's expression changed from vexed to unhappy. "The callous son of a bitch—no disrespect intended, you understand. To you, either, Oskar," he added after a moment's thought.

"Master Evyndd did what he thought was necessary for him to do to preserve himself and his legacy." In the absence of that deceased worthy, Taj took it upon himself to offer the modest apologia. "I'm sure he meant no harm by it, and I know for a fact that he loved you all."

There was silence for several minutes while each of them reconsidered anew their relationship with their now departed master; a relationship they thought they had understood, both as animals and as humans. Now it appeared that emotional tie, along with everything else, had been very different from what they had supposed all along.

Oskar confronted Taj, but not for the reason the latter suspected. "You said that you recorded and remembered for him. So that—what was it you said?—so that his knowledge and wisdom would be preserved." He thrust his mustachioed face closer to that of the other man. "Does that mean you now possess his knowledge and wisdom?"

Mamakitty held her breath. The songster's expression was unreadable. "I have none of his wisdom. Wisdom dies with the wise. But a little knowledge, that I retain." He shrugged modestly. "It was my job."

Oskar's eyes widened. "You! You were the first one through. You were the one who found the opening in the rainbow and summoned us to follow."

Taj nodded, and this time allowed himself a slight smile. "I had to risk exposing myself. It was the only way to save us all. Fortunately, our stalkers did not descry the use of magic on my part. Had they done so, I fear we would have been forced to deal much sooner with the Khaxan Mundurucu. And there were other times, other occasions these past difficult days, when I surreptitiously made use of what small learning I had acquired in the service of the Master." He saw Cocoa staring at him. "Do you remember when we entered the Kingdom of Yellow?"

She nodded. "The great gate. You were the one who discovered that it was unlocked."

A ghost of a grin creased his face. "It wasn't exactly 'unlocked.' A small magic, that. And of course there was the time when we were trapped within the fallen kauri tree in the Kingdom of Green. Did several of you not wonder how all those fellow avians who finally freed us could hear my whistling calls through all that wood? To avoid the details of an explanation, I had to several times change the subject in haste."

"When else?" Cezer could not keep from asking. He was remembering now: little comments, small observations that at the time had not jibed with their view of Taj as a simple songster, but which they had been too busy or too tired to pursue.

"I'll remind you another time, another time, my furry friend. When we sit again by a warm fire in a safe country, and you decide to show an interest in what I have to say instead of wondering how I might taste."

"We have the white light. Do we begin here?" Eagerness glistened in Cocoa's eyes. "This is as good a place as any to start overturning the Mundurucu's baneful spell."

"No, it isn't." Taj was firm in his objection. "We must return home, to the Master's house. Not only will we all be more at ease once we are back home, but there are active at that place certain evanescent forces that will aid and abet our efforts. It is why Evyndd caused his abode to be raised in that spot in the first place—or so I was once told."

Oskar looked closely at his friend. "You didn't say 'Master,'"

"What?" Taj blinked at him.

"When you mentioned him just then. You didn't call him Master Evyndd."

The familiar started, then nodded soberly. "It signifies a change. In our status as well as his. We must be our own masters now, and act like it if we are going to do battle with thaumaturgy as powerful as that cultivated by the Khaxan Mundurucu."

Samm's massive fingers opened and closed. "I wish I hadn't left my axe behind."

"We'll take new weapons from the armory at the house. Sorcery notwithstanding, it's always good to have a sharp blade close at hand." Taj started past the two men, heading for the steep slope that led upward toward the road they had wandered down not so very long ago.

"Maybe that person can help us secure some for the journey back to the forest." Starting up the base of the hill, Cezer had noticed a woman standing in the shallows downstream from the falls. Now he headed toward her, waving one hand and calling out a cheerful greeting.

Hearing his shout, she turned and saw his approach, whereupon she flung aside the bucket half full of crayfish she had collected, gathered up her skirts in both hands, and ran screaming from the water to the nearby path. Once she reached dry land, her speed increased markedly, so much so that a baffled Cezer slowed to a halt. He could have caught up to her easily. Dropping his arm, he followed her frantic flight until her feet had carried her out of sight. Returning to the waiting group, he cast a bemused glance at his friends.

"I don't understand. I was smiling, and my voice was full of friendship and reassurance. Why did she run from me? Have we in our journeying undergone some awful transformation that is now to make others flee in terror from the sight of us?" He paused to shake his head, more baffled than ever. "Say—why are you all grinning at me?"

Oskar was fighting back the laughter that threatened to overwhelm him. "I'm no dog today, Cezer. And you're no cat. Had you presented yourself before the unfortunate lady as the cat you usually are, I'm sure she would have greeted you fondly. In your present condition, however, you were bound to provoke a somewhat different reaction."

The swordsman looked down at himself. "What's wrong with—oh. I forgot. Humans have this thing about clothing, don't they?"

"Indeed they do." Glistening and nude, Mamakitty grabbed on to an overhanging tree branch to help pull herself up the damp slope.

The disconcerted swordsman sidled up to Taj. "You're a sorcerer. Why don't you just conjure us back some clothes?"

"I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a sorcerer." The lean-muscled songster was contemplating with distaste the long climb from water's edge back up to the river road. "I am only a familiar, and a very lowly familiar at that. And I miss my wings." Stepping past his companion, he began to ascend in Mamakitty's wake—which, under the circumstances, was not so very bad a place to be.