Kingdoms of Light

TWENTY

In those dismal days of depression and misery, the road that led from Zelevin was not nearly as busy as it had been before the arrival of the Horde and the Khaxan Mundurucu. Like every other aspect of daily life, commerce, too, lay under a cloud. Because of this, the travelers managed to avoid drawing attention to themselves. The first village they encountered was too busy for them to enter, but with nearly the entire population of the second in attendance at a pitifully bleak marriage ceremony, they managed to sneak in and back out again with a ragtag assortment of appropriated attire Mamakitty insisted must be returned later, and enough food with which to stuff their borrowed pockets.

When eventually they reentered the Fasna Wyzel, more than memories came flooding back. They journeyed onward in silence, each lost in his or her own thoughts and emotions, no longer certain whether they were animal, human, or some enigmatic melding of both. As they left the marked trails behind and moved into the silent depths of the great forest they were confronted with places, sights, smells, and sounds they had known intimately in animal form. As humans, they perceived everything differently. When they had left the forest before, their human bodies had been new to them and their attention and interests directed elsewhere. Now they had time to reflect on the striking transformation they had undergone. It left each of them feeling very humble—except perhaps Cezer, who alone among them probably could not count that particular sentiment in his emotional vocabulary.

When the house of the good wizard Susnam Evyndd at last came again into view, however, even the flint-hearted swordsman was overcome by emotion.

It stood much as they had left it. The spiders had been busy, and a profusion of webs decorated the sheltered places under the eaves, in the doorway, and in some of the windows. But the sturdy structure had not burned or fallen down. It hunkered up against the bracing rocks against which it had been built, facing the forest and the rest of the world with thatched defiance—the only real home any of them had ever known. It at once drew them on and repelled them.

It was fitting that Oskar, having watched over the front door all his adult life, should be the one to push it open. How much easier, he reflected, to do so with hands than with nose or paw. But not necessarily as satisfying. Considering how long the house had been empty, they found the interior in surprisingly good condition. Plenty of dry food remained in the pantry, undisturbed and unfouled by weevils. But the small crunchy bits of dried and processed protein no longer appealed to Oskar and his feline friends, nor the barrel of assorted seeds to Taj. As for Samm, having gorged recently on meatfruit in the Kingdom of Purple, he felt no urge to eat again so soon. In that respect he was alone.

For years they had watched Master Evyndd prepare meals for himself. They had eaten human food during their arduous trek through the kingdoms of light. Now they set about improvising what they could from the available stores. The result would have appalled a genteel gourmet, but it filled their bellies and assuaged the ache that had begun to grow there.

It was very late on the morning of the following day when they finally awoke from a long-overdue sleep. Samm would have dozed on had Oskar and Mamakitty not pounded on his shoulders and slapped his face until he finally opened his eyes.

"Sssorry," he mumbled as he rose to his feet. All night long, he had slept with the white radiance held close to his stomach to ensure its safety. "It's easier to shed one's skin than an old lifestyle."

They cleaned themselves, using the rainwater shower and towels instead of tongues and paws. Then, with Samm carefully carrying the lambent white orb, they went looking for Taj. They found him standing and waiting for them on the front lawn.

"How many times I sat in my cage, gazing out at this vista"—he turned to his refreshed and ready companions—"watching you play on this lawn, Oskar, while Mamakitty and Cezer and Cocoa chased bugs and chipmunks and the occasional ball of discarded wizard shine, while I was stuck in my cage, singing. Or studying."

"I can sympathize." For a snake, Samm was unusually compassionate. Except when he was swallowing someone. "Apart from the singing part, of course. Not that I couldn't sing," he added in response to their disbelieving stares, "but no one wanted to hear me. My kind aren't celebrated for harmony."

Apprehensive but game, Cocoa eyed the familiar. "There's no use in putting it off, Taj. What do we do now?"

This morning, the songster looked older than his years. Try as he might, he could not escape the feeling that the ultimate responsibility for the success or failure of what they were about to attempt was his. With a deep sigh, he extended a hand to Samm.

"Give me the white light."

The giant passed it over. Taj held it lightly in his open palm. It was warm, but not unpleasantly so, and weighed, according to his best estimate, less than nothing.

"Gather around."

Cezer frowned at him. "What for? You're the wise and powerful familiar, not us."

The songster smiled at him. "Did you think the Master set you all on this quest to keep me company? Just as we were all part and parcel of his life, so, too, are we parcel and part of his magic, even though he has gone from us. For an enchantment this profound to work, it requires input from every one of us."

The swordsman shrugged and stepped forward. "If you say so." He eyed the shaggy-haired dog-man standing next to him. "Just don't ask Oskar to pee on me, okay?"

"That's close enough. Now join paws—I mean, hands." Self-consciously, the members of the little company complied. Taking a last look at the clouds (and hoping it was indeed not his last), Taj began—not to speak, which skill had never been his forte, but to sing.

"Strength of serpent, circle round this space." Next to Mamakitty, Samm stiffened. A cold breeze sprang up around them; a small wall of conjoined atmosphere.

"Swiftness of cat, bar evil's trace." The breeze grew stronger. A strange tickling sensation prickled Cocoa's skin. Blinking against the rising wind, she saw that everyone's hair was standing vertical, as if the current of air were blowing straight up out of the ground under their feet. She gripped Mamakitty's and Cezer's hands tighter in her own.

Taj sang to the sky for all he was worth, a song less melodious than it might have been had he been inhabiting his original form, but infinitely more powerful.

"Devotion of dog, hold all in place! Now spread the light, and color everywhere race!

Oskar felt himself shaking. Or maybe it was the ground Underfoot. It was a wholly eerie sensation because it was utterly quiet. Even the animals of the forest had gone silent. With the now gale-force wind rushing up from his feet to his ears, he had to squint to see through the rising column of dust and litter that was shooting skyward.

The globe of white light began to rise. Caught in something much more significant than the howling pillar of wind, it rose skyward, accelerating as it ascended. As it climbed, it began to expand. It was very bright, very intense, and perfectly, dazzlingly, white. Soon it was four times the size of the sphere Taj had held so effortlessly. Then it doubled in volume, and doubled again. By the time it neared the underside of the lowest cloud, it had expanded to the size of a small ship.

Whereupon the swaying, hand-holding group of transmogrified friends gathered below had to avert their eyes and cover their faces, as the refulgent sphere unexpectedly and violently exploded.

It detonated not with a percussive bang but with an infinitely vast rush of air, as if the heavens themselves had suddenly released a single vast, thankful sigh. From the ultimate depths of the explosion a wave of solid swirling color emerged, to boil away in all directions like an expanding wave. It washed over the roof of the sky, the clouds, the land, and everything above and below.

Straightening cautiously, Cocoa gazed down at herself in wonderment. The column of wind had vanished, and her long bright tresses lay gracefully against her neck and shoulders. "Look. Everybody, look! It's back. The color of light is back!"

As indeed it was. Her heretofore dull-as-dishwater village raiment now flaunted the startling crimson and jade green with which the material had been dyed. A dazed Cezer sat down on the grass, resplendent in simple clothing that was dark blue trimmed with touches of tangerine. Samm's temporary, too-tight body wrappings of hastily scavenged cloth were once more off-white and beige. Everywhere about them, color had returned wherever the miraculous pigmented swell had washed over them. Certainly the rush of blood that now suffused Taj's countenance was bright pink.

Samm walked over and put a comforting arm around the somewhat stunned songster's shoulders. "I have to hand it to you," the giant declared admiringly, "now that I once again have hands to hand it to you with. You did it. What you did, I'm not sure, but it worked!"

Cocoa leaned forward and pressed her lips firmly against the songster's. "You had us all well and truly fooled, Taj. It's a right good familiar you are!"

The pink rush to the slender singer's cheeks deepened as she drew back. "Thank you, both. Thank you all. I couldn't have done it without you. Without all of you. In that sense, in that way, we are one."

"Hell's kittens," Cezer remarked, "we were always one. At odds with each other, sometimes. Quarrelsome and bitchy. Nasty and mean-spirited. Argumentative and—"

"We get the picture, Cezer," Mamakitty declared, interrupting him.

"You know what I mean," the uncharacteristically solemn swordsman muttered. "A household."

No one said anything, but Cocoa quietly hugged Samm. Mamakitty smiled and nodded knowingly at Taj, while a newly ebullient Oskar spread his arms wide to embrace Cezer.

Holding his nose and wrinkling up his face, the swordsman hurried to duck away from the dog-man's effusive reach.

Friends they might be, companions in peril and comrades in arms—but a cat had its limits.

As the surge of color exploded from above the little house in the deep forest, it expanded and grew, piling up higher and higher upon itself in great frothy curls of azure and gold, scarlet and saffron, ocher and maroon. It gushed across the Gowdlands in a spreading prismatic wave so vivid it bordered on iridescence. And wherever it passed, color returned to the world.

Redbirds and cardinals again became worthy of their names. Pigs turned a healthy pink, goldfish gleamed in their bowls, and children inspired to resume their laughing and playing no longer wore expressions gray-washed by despair. The return of color brought forth laughter, laughter brought forth joy, and joy a lifting of the curse of depression that was worse than the absence of color itself. Hue and tint returned to conversation as well as complexions. Buildings brightly painted suddenly glowed anew with fresh life. From worm to washerwoman, the world was reinvigorated, as everyone and everything that had slumbered beneath the curse of the Mundurucu began to reawaken to the thrill of a colorful existence.

With the return of the glorious tints of natural life, musicians were inspired once more to make music. Hope returned to disconsolate painters in concert with their pigments. Accountants again took pleasure in the compiling of figures. The absence of color had not been a small thing in people's lives, and its sudden and unexpected return was the occasion for great rejoicing. Many were the children born that day who were joyously christened with the forename "Rainbow" or "Red" or some other descriptive reminder of the unexpected miracle.

Coloration returned to the rivers, to the fish and frogs that dwelled within them, to the trees and flowers that lined their banks, and even to the somber fortress of Malostranka that loomed above them. It flooded back into the faces of the melancholy refugees huddled within its sheer stone walls, reanimated the arms and armor of its defenders, and struck with unwholesome spots of mottled brown and green the gargoylish faces of those who besieged it.

No one, from the lowliest kitchen drudge sorting through the fortress's dwindling supplies to the most toadlike spear-carrier farting his way through the front ranks of the blockading Horde, escaped the import of the atmospheric transmutation. The latter drew much of their strength and determination from the knowledge that none could stand against the might of the Khaxan Mundurucu. When they were confronted with undeniable evidence to the contrary, a disorderly and disturbed murmuring arose among them that their officers were unable to suppress with fulminations and whips.

Within the castle Malostranka, Valkounin the Strong, resplendent in battle gear to which every glaze and patina had been restored, appeared before Princess Petrine, his face flushed with excitement and barely repressed zeal.

"Your Highness, something—we know not what—has broken the hex laid upon the Gowdlands by the Khaxan Mundurucu. Those of us who have survived to defend this fortress are the best, the toughest, and the most determined warriors remaining." Helmet tucked firmly in the crook of his left arm, he drew himself up to his full height. Around him and hanging from the rafters were myriad banners to which full glory had been restored. "I have been deputed to request your permission to mount a sortie, in an attempt to drive from our doorstep an enemy that is at present clearly flustered. If it should prove successful, we propose to move against the Horde in strength and push them out of the province. As word of our victories spreads, the dispirited folk of the Gowdlands will flock to join us."

Princess Petrine, who was wise beyond her youth and beauty, rubbed her fine, pale chin with one delicate finger. "What if this is a trick of the Mundurucu, to draw us out of the castle so they can destroy us?"

Terwell Dhradvin of the Barony of Umbersaar stepped forward to stand alongside Valkounin. "Reports are already flooding in to those few masters of magic who have survived among us, Your Highness. Everywhere throughout the Gowdlands, the curse is broken. If this is simply a ruse meant to draw us forth, why risk rebellion throughout the civilized countries by lifting the curse everywhere? Why not simply do it here, since we are the only fighters left who need be deceived?"

From behind the two general officers, a rejuvenated Captain Slale spoke up. For the first time in a very long while, he had something to live for. Why he spoke out of turn, and out of rank, he later could not say—only that his outburst seemed to have been prompted by memories of a silver box, and a handful of dust.

"Your Highness, I have looked through far-seeing glasses from atop the fortress walls. The enemy's confusion is too widespread to be faked. Some of them can even be seen to be deserting in the direction of distant Kyll-Bar-Bennid."

Muscles taut, Valkounin took a step forward. "Strike now, your Highness! Before they have a chance to regroup. Before the Khaxan Mundurucu themselves arrive to take charge of the siege and endeavor to resuscitate their hex."

Princess Petrine rose slowly, her pale embroidered robes, to which full brilliance had been restored, trailing about her. "Take charge of the brave fighters who still stand, and drive the heinous besiegers from our walls, bold warriors of the Gowdlands. I grant permission—on one condition."

Valkounin the Strong eyed the princess uncertainly. "Your Highness?"

Eyes glistening, she extended her right hand. "My backside is sore and blistered from doing nothing but sitting on this damned unyielding throne. Find me a sword!"

Within the crenellated tower rooms that occupied the highest point of the fabled castle Burgoylod, atop the central hill that dominates the great trading city of Kyll-Bar-Bennid, the Khaxan Mundurucu were taking their detestable ease when pint-size Klegl came running in from outside, his expression all wheeze and spittle.

"Brethren, my brethren! Kobkale and Kmeliog, Kwort and Kmotho—all of you, come quick, quick come!"

Displeased by the manic interruption, no less so because it came from one of his own, Kobbod rose from the backs of the whimpering young human children on whose ribs he had been composing a musical interlude and followed the squat, distraught Klegl outside. Kobkale and the others of the Clan who were present joined him, muttering various and inventive calumnies under their collective fetid breath. Their intention to pummel the obstreperous Klegl severely was forgotten as soon as they saw what had so unsettled him.

Approaching from the southeast, a veritable tsunami of roiling, coruscating color was rushing in all directions—including straight toward the castle. The fantastical phenomenon filled the sky, transfiguring the gray clouds as it embraced them, washing over and transforming any birds or treetops in its path. His heavy lower jaw dropping, Kobkale stared in disbelief as the onrushing chromatic juggernaut came screaming toward him. At the last instant he threw up his thick, short arms to protect his face. Around him, other clan members gasped or squealed in alarm.

The spectral surge passed over the castle with a great sigh and continued on its way toward the most distant reaches of the Gowdlands. When Kobkale lowered his arms and opened his eyes, he saw to his shock that the massive stone fortifications once more glittered with colorful crystalline inclusions. Color had returned to the pennants that hung limply from staffs, to the noisome liquids that stained the harsh stone underfoot, to the wood that framed certain of the windows—even to his own clothing.

A hand pawed urgently at his shoulder. Kesbroch was next to him, babbling incoherently. Drawing back his left hand, Kobkale dealt his relative a furious blow across the face that knocked him into a complete back flip. By the time he landed on his belly, the stunned but unharmed Mundurucu had managed to regain some control.

"But what are we to do? No one is powerful enough to break a curse of the Khaxan!"

"No one." Eyes narrowed, Kobkale was gazing speculatively into the distance from whence the prismatic storm had arisen. "Assemble the Clan. It appears that our work here is not quite finished. There remains one more overlooked detail that demands our attention."

He remained by the parapet, brooding into the southeast, as the bewildered Kesbroch waddled hastily back into the castle, bleating at the top of his considerable lungs.

It did not take long to gather the two-and-twenty. The return of color had left every one of them alternately appalled and confused, agitated and enraged. Several fights broke out among the assembled as they waited to listen to Kobkale: not because the respective combatants were particularly angry at one another, but because among themselves brawling and scuffling were a traditional means of releasing frustration.

Even those with teeth buried in a kinfolk's arm or leg, however, desisted when Kobkale demanded their attention.

"Our hex has been overturned," he declared, utilizing his toadlike mouth to the fullest.

"We know that," croaked Kushmouth. "What are we going to do about it?"

"Grork , that's right," added Korpbone. "If we don't put things back the way they were, some of these treacherous humans might start to get ideas." He ground one warty, pustulant fist into a leathery open palm. "Best to keep them crushed underfoot with their faces in the dirt."

Turning his head slightly, Kobkale spat something vile over the wall. "While you were all running around with loose heads, I have taken care to mark the nexus of the countervailing conjuration. Calculating backward from the place where the ripples of color first were seen, I believe I know the place where it originated as well as the possible identity of those who perpetrated it." His eyes blazed. "The Clan will go there, and we will put an end once and for all to those who dare defy our mandate."

The bloodthirsty cries and shrieks of support that greeted Kobkale's avowal sent shudders through those humans in the castle unfortunate enough to have been conscripted to serve them. Fear was visible even on the faces of the members of the Horde who arrived shortly thereafter with a trio of recently transformed individuals in tow. But the expressions of the soldiers were tranquil compared to the looks on the faces of Quoll and his companions.

As the members of the Clan pushed and shoved, clustering tighter and tighter together on the high open platform that overlooked enslaved Kyll-Bar-Bennid below, Kobkale greeted the new arrivals. Halting in front of Quoll, the squat Mundurucu looked up at him and the two former vampire bats. Too much the berserker to be really afraid, Quoll glared defiantly back at him. Ruut and Ratha, on the other hand, were quaking with unashamed terror.

"What's the meaning of this?" The tightly bound Quoll glared at the silently seething Mundurucu. "Why have we been brought here like this?"

Kobkale's voice was dangerously calm. "It would appear, friend Quoll, that you have not been entirely truthful with your friends the Khaxan Mundurucu."

More mystified than frightened, Quoll stammered with repressed energy, "What are you talking about?"

"I have only just now been given reason to believe that the scorned wizard Susnam Evyndd's personal creatures not only survived the strange kingdom into which you insist they were exiled for all time, but have returned equipped with unsuspected powers." One arm rose to encompass their environs. "I believe that the return of spitefully cheerful color to this conquered country is their doing."

Wide-eyed, Ratha struggled futilely in her bonds. "That's impossible! They were to be banished from the last kingdom of color, but we saw them destroyed before our eyes!"

"You should not have relied on others to do your work for you." Kobkale picked something small, green, and not entirely deceased from between his front teeth.

"We had no choice!" Ruut objected. "We were compelled to—"

"You were compelled to do what you were told," the Mundurucu interrupted. "Evidently, not adequately."

"It won't happen again," Ratha stuttered.

"It certainly won't." Raising both hands, Kobkale uttered a string of suggestive phrases incomprehensible to prisoners and guards alike. Then, apparently satisfied, he turned and threw himself with ferocious energy into the churning pile of Mundurucu that comprised the Khaxan. Following the arrival of the last of the two-and-twenty, there was a violent implosion that momentarily sucked the startled onlookers forward, a loud phut that sounded like a diabolic entity casually breaking wind, whereupon the Mundurucu vanished. Every one of them. Disappeared, down to the last unkempt hair, exfoliating horn, deeply stained fang, and bilious eye.

Uncertain what to do next, the handful of guards eyed one another in confusion. Then Ratha screamed; a ghastly, quavering sound whose timbre trembled at the very edge of human audibility. She was echoed by her mate Ruut, and finally, though he fought frenziedly against it, by the defiant-to-the-last Quoll.

Very little there was capable of horrifying the fighters of the Totumakk Horde, but what unfolded before their eyes on that open platform near the topmost floors of Castle Burgoylod caused even the most hardened among them to recoil in terror.

Writhing and twisting, emaciated black worms began to emerge from the convulsing bodies of the three prisoners. Wracked with pain, they collapsed to the hard stone, every muscle in their bodies twitching and spasming, causing them to jerk and flop about like gaffed fish. Too lost in agony even to scream, they lurched and quivered like that for some time, until finally, mercifully, they lay still. Not black worms but the axons, the actual nerves, had erupted from their bodies. Now these lay in stagnant, lifeless coils about the motionless corpses of three former servants of the Khaxan Mundurucu.

Even in death, the red eyes of a certain maniacal marsupial seemed to burn with hatred for everything living that was not a quoll.