Kingdoms of Light

by Alan Dean Foster

  Like the rest of its arboreal brethren, the aireq bird was in a less than cheerful mood when the eager eyewitness attached message and directions to its leg. It sat on its perch, face nearly as long as its wings, and waited apathetically for instructions.

  "Go now," the former resident of the taverna commanded. "Fly swift to the fortress of Kyll-Bar-Bennid, deliver this message, and hurry back with our reward. Your share will feed you well."

  The aireq sighed and fluttered its sleek blue-black wings in the subdued gray light. "Might as well. I could use the exercise." Whereupon it lifted from its perch by means of the two smaller wings attached to the sides of its skull, rose into the air, and flew straightaway out the open window.

  It was the opinion of the soldiers guarding the castle among whom the aireq landed that they should skin the unexpected arrival for its fine feathers, which could be sold in what remained of the city market, and then add the plucked body to the communal stewpot. Fortunately for them (not to mention the understandably agitated aireq) an officer of the Horde with some knowledge of such things and a good deal more insight into matters of advanced communication interrupted the incipient plucking and rescued the bird. Upon hearing its tale, the officer promptly conveyed it to the fortress keep where the general staff of the Totumakk and the horrid Khaxan had established their headquarters.

  Kelkefth relieved the aireq of its communiquй, considered eating it herself (raw), and was stopped by her sister Knublib. "What kind of information would we glean if word were to spread that we devour the messengers?"

  "Pagh!" Wiping green snot from the end of her exceedingly bulbous, tumorous nose, the other Mundurucu spat at her sister. "It be only a bird."

  "Messenger still." Seeking to settle the argument, Knublib added, "Let Kobkale decide."

  When presented with the message and its attendant controversy, that distinctively overbearing but perceptive goblin quickly validated Knublib's perspicacity. Left unconsumed, the greatly relieved aireq was sent on its way in possession of a suitable pouch of gold coin to reward its tattler of a master. In its absence Kobkale, Kieraklav, and the Hairy Kwodd debated the significance of the missive that had been delivered to them.

  "So fighting travelers who spoke of that miserable dead amateur, Susnam Evyndd, stank of cat and dog." Kieraklav's nose itched, and she rubbed her flat face with a palm big enough to easily cover the entire grotesque countenance. "So what?"

  "Not just of Evyndd." Hairy Kwodd always sounded as if he was speaking from the bottom of a well because he was entirely covered from pointed head to protuberant toe with a cascade of dirty white hair. No one, not even his fellow Mundurucu, knew what he really looked like. This caused no problems because no one was sure they really wanted to know. "According to the message, these strangers referred to him as 'Master' Evyndd. That suggests a connection that is deep and personal rather than casual."

  "I agree." Kobkale was sucking the marrow out of a human bone of indeterminate age. "Not that any such as are described in the report appear to present much of a danger."

  Kieraklav shrugged blunt shoulders, and unpleasant things shifted beneath her leathery blouse. "Tell Drauchec. Have him send a detachment to find these apostates and remove their faces."

  "Rush to judgment, be it now?" Kobkale struck her a capricious blow that sent her spinning. Landing on her feet, she straightened her jumbled attire and voiced no umbrage at the reprimand. Among the Mundurucu, kicks and punches were often used in place of more formal grammar to punctuate argument. "I think not," Kobkale went on. "There may be more here than meets the eye."

  "What say you, brother?" gurgled Hairy Kwodd.

  Kobkale gnawed on a fingernail that was blunt, sharp, and filthy. It required daily refilthening to keep it that way. "I say that while Susnam Evyndd might have been an amateur, he was a talented one. The Mundurucu differ from other goblinish necromantics because we have acquired wisdom as well as talent. There may be nothing to this tale—or there may be something to learn. Learn first, kill later, says I."

  Kieraklav grudgingly grunted assent. "I prefer to kill right away, but it is not worth arguing about."

  "Whether it is worth anything remains to be seen. That is my point." Kobkale squinted at a high, narrow window. Outside the castle keep, all was gray, dank, and wretched. Just as things ought to be, he reflected contentedly. Only an occasional scream wafted weakly up from the occupied city below. Not even the stubborn resistance of the company of humans holding out in the distant fortress called Malostranka could spoil his humor.

  "I would not put a postmortem transforming spell beyond the capabilities of the extirpated amateur Evyndd. Is it known if he kept any familiars?"

  Kieraklav exchanged a glance with Hairy Kwodd—or feigned one, since his eyes were hidden behind his hellacious hirsuteness. "If he did, he brought none of them with him to the battle."

  "The travelers described in the traitor's missive could not be very effectual familiars." Hairy Kwodd shuffled barely visible oversize feet. "They have done nothing to avenge the dead amateur."

  "And yet." Kobkale had not achieved the standing he held among the Clan by rushing to judgment, or by taking opponents—any opponent—for granted. "It is true this may amount to nothing. The informer may have heard wrong, or smelled wrong. But it is better to ensure that there be no threat to us in this."

  "Should I tell Drauchec?" Kieraklav quite fancied the Horde general, his expression of revulsion when she touched him notwithstanding.

  "No." Kobkale's deviant mind was hard at work. "If there are animals involved, they may well be able to avoid or to fool the simple minions of the Horde. Our bloodthirsty brethren are most righteous killers, but they are not particularly perceptive. Kind to kind, like to like. Set similar to catch same, says I."

  Kieraklav frowned, which made her appearance even more distasteful to look upon than usual. "You wish me to find among the Horde cats and dogs suitable for transmuting?"

  "No, not cats and dogs. Besides, I have seen cats and dogs among our retinue within the Horde, and they are kept for food, not as pets. Search among them for attendant animals, yes, but not cats and dogs. I will describe to you the type that I would like to have for this spell."

  So Kieraklav and several other of the Mundurucu went among the fighters of the Totumakk, careful in their questioning not to interrupt the looting and torturing and rapine. This was not difficult, since by now there was very little left to loot, and few left to rape. The Horde was compelled to resort to casual torture for amusement, an undertaking at which they were adept if not imaginative. They were always grateful to receive suggestions and pointers for improving their skills from the far more inventive Mundurucu.

  When at last Kieraklav and Hairy Kwodd reported back to Kobkale, it was with suitable subjects in tow.

  "We could only find three who fit anything of your description," she complained.

  Kobkale promptly smacked her halfway across the room.

  Picking herself up immediately, she dusted off the new, fungus-infected dress she was wearing and rejoined him. Kobkale did not deal Hairy Kwodd a similar blow because no one had ever seen that shaggy individual knocked off his feet. Also, Kobkale sensed instinctively that it would not be a good idea. Like the rest of his brethren, he did not want to see what really lay beneath that enigmatic, tangled, ambulatory thicket.

  Instead, he proceeded to examine the confused but combative trio of creatures his kinfolk had procured. "They'll do," he announced finally. Lifting both arms, which in the case of even stout goblins is not very high, he raised his voice. That was not very high either, but his words still resounded off the walls of the keep. Below, shackled humans heard, and shuddered at the import of the fresh evil they could feel sifting through the fortress.

  Lowering his hands at last, Kobkale joined fingers with Kieraklav and took hold of a fistful of Hairy Kwodd's cascading whiskers. Both of them joined him in the concluding chant. Stuttering green-gray light suffused the room and fo
cused on the three restrained creatures in their midst. There was a sound as of paper ripping, a distant, forlorn yowl, and then silence.

  Where the three confiscated pets had clustered defiantly together there now stood three naked human figures. The taller male and one female were slim, muscular, and possessed of devastating smiles that reflected not an inner good nature but preternaturally long canines, a legacy from their former state as vampiric night fliers.

  Standing between and slightly in front of them was a stocky, long-jawed man with red-brown hair spotted with white. His eyes were large, luminous, and penetrating. He, too, was smiling, showing teeth that were sharper than they should have been. Every move he made, every motion of his body, oozed barely restrained power and strength. Standing before the three Mundurucu, he was a coiled spring of ferocious, inimical energy. Not surprising, Kobkale knew, since he had been transformed from one of the nastiest, most foul-tempered creatures in nature.

  "These two have names." Kieraklav proceeded to identify the closely related male and female. "The one with the balls is Ruut, and his companion is called Ratha." With a gnarled finger she indicated the third member of the quietly defiant trio. "That one doesn't have a name."

  "Then we will call it by what it is." Kobkale approached. "Tell me, Quoll, how do you like your new circumstances?"

  "I like them fine," the quoll replied, whereupon it exhibited blinding speed in leaping straight at Kobkale, both hands outstretched as they reached for the Mundurucu's exposed throat.

  Something thin, scabrous, and unholy whipped out from within Hairy Kwodd's mantle of kink to wrap several times around the quoll's wrists. Snarling, the new-made man found himself yanked around. Eyes ablaze, he prepared to strike at his captor even with his arms bound and helpless. Something in the aspect of Hairy Kwodd told him that would be a bad idea. So he stood still and held his peace, simmering and boiling like a pot kept too long on an overheated stove.

  "Temper, temper." Though a little rattled by the suddenness of the attack, Kobkale knew it boded well for the trio's mission. "Why did you jump at me like that? Are you so displeased with your metamorphosis?"

  "Not at all," Quoll replied, his arms still secured. When Hairy Kwodd released him, he stood naked where he was, rubbing his wrists lightly. "I just wanted to kill something, and you were the first liveness I settled on."

  "You will have your opportunities to kill, I promise you. That and more, if you and your new friends conclude one simple task to the Mundurucu's satisfaction. You may even keep your human bodies, which are more conducive to murder than your former animalistic forms."

  Behind Quoll, Ratha grinned contentedly. "Very sweet that would be." She licked lovely, but very dark, lips. "Speaking of sweet, my throat is quite dry."

  "Transmogrification is a thirsty business." Kobkale nodded at Kieraklav, who was eyeing the naked Ruut ardently. "Find blood for these two, and flesh for the other. Then suitable attire." He pursed thick lips, causing the upper one to submerge half his nose. "Come to think of it, take them on a stroll through town, and you may find everything you need in any one suitably populated house." Approaching Quoll, he looked up at the new man, whose countenance seemed fixed in a perpetual glare.

  "I know you would like to rip out my throat and wallow in my guts, but you're going to have to be able to restrain yourself, or you'll never succeed in carrying out the relatively simple task I have in mind for you."

  "Don't worry about me. I can control my urges when I have to." Even in the repressed gray light of the chamber, the goblin could see that the man's eyes were as much blood red as they were blue. "When I have to."

  Kobkale was pleased. He was confident that when they sent this trio on its way, he and the rest of the Mundurucu could forget about this business of catand dog-smelling humans who venerated a dead enemy.

  In fact, he would have pitied them—had he or any of the Mundurucu been capable of expressing so alien an emotion.

  SIX

  As was usual with examples of active hydrology, they heard the falls before they saw them. All morning, the road to Zelevin had been narrowing. Formerly negotiable slopes on their right grew more and more perpendicular, until they were striding along with a sheer wall of black basalt on their right hand and steep drop-offs immediately to their left. Moisture-loving trees and bushes, ferns, and mosses clung to the mountainside and overflowed the gorge below. Water dripped in sparkling streams from leaves with pointed tips, as if the ferns were fountains whose spigots had been left ever so slightly open. Dominating everything else was the sheer-sided plug of weathered volcanic rock known as Temmerefe's Sky-Reef, usually emerald-crowned, now reduced to a gloomy gray mass no different from the less spectacular peaks that surrounded it.

  Normally, hummingbirds and sunbirds gathered in profusion to feed on the flowers that clung to the sides of the Eusebian Gorge, their shimmering metallic throat feathers glistening like enameled porcelain, while translucent flequins soared high on the rising currents of moist air and cried for carrion. Now only a few desultory cheeps and squeaks reached the travelers, so benumbed were the arboreal denizens of the gorge by the absence of color. Espying one lonely sunbird flitting moodily from vovix blossom to perapa flower, Oskar wondered how in the absence of gender-specific tints males and females could tell one another apart. Cezer wondered if the lack of color would change the taste of the high-soaring fliers' flesh. Taj gazed longingly at his distant relations, while Samm wondered…

  Did Samm wonder, Oskar mused? And if so, what did the giant wonder about? He made an effort to imagine snake thoughts, failed, and returned his attention to the ground. Traveling on only half the usual number of legs, it would be easy to slip on the damp, sometimes muddy road. It was getting easier, but was a long way from being second nature. This upright human posture still found him unsteady. The urge to drop to all fours when traversing the most difficult spots had not left him. The cat folk were not troubled by the steep slope or precipitous drop. Whether on two legs or four, they remained completely at ease in high places.

  "I don't see any rainbow." For the past hour, Taj had been whistling (and whistling wonderfully) to keep their spirits up.

  "It's here. We're not at the falls yet." Mamakitty strode along smoothly, seemingly untroubled by her newly enjoined verticality. But then, Oskar reflected without jealousy, she and Cezer and Cocoa had cat senses. He was only a dog, with all the fears and worries dogs were heir to.

  The travelers did not hear the roaring until they turned a sharp corner on the mountainside, and did not see the falls for another two hours, during which time the road angled sharply downward as it descended into the gray-green depths of the canyon. Then the tall trees that sprouted from the edge of the gorge gave way to smaller bushes and thickets of color-drained flowers, and the clamor that had been growing in their ears all morning suddenly doubled in intensity.

  "Oh—how beautiful!" Cocoa stopped by the side of the road, which was now barely wide enough to allow a coach to pass, to admire the thundering cataract.

  "Magnificent." Taj shook droplets of water from his hair. He would have lifted his arms to embrace the spray, but clad as he was in clothing instead of feathers, the gesture seemed certain to give rise to more difficulty than pleasure. "As is your rainbow, Mamakitty."

  "If I didn't see it, I wouldn't believe it." Oskar gazed in fascination at the band of multihued brilliance that stretched from one side of the gorge to the other, fronting the white-foamed waterfall like a belt across the belly of a pallid stranger. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. Viewing it in passing on his previous visit in the company of Master Evyndd, he had been able to see it only through the color-limited eyes of a dog. Even so, his astonishment at the multihued revelation was as nothing compared to Samm's.

  The giant threw back his broad chest and inhaled deeply, his tongue flicking out from between his parted lips. "So that is what real color looks like! Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined such a thing. It tastes�
�hot."

  Cezer frowned. "What does?"

  The giant looked down at him and smiled. "Color."

  Oskar continued to stare quietly. "This rainbow may be the last remaining object of real color left in the Gowdlands."

  "But why should it be so?" Samm was clearly, and unashamedly, puzzled. "Why should color here alone remain, in this form?"

  Though she was no scholar, Mamakitty did her best to offer an explanation. "I can't really say, except that rainbows aren't like painted walls or dyed clothing or even spotted fur. According to the Master, they exist from moment to moment. Maybe the ability to constantly renew itself through the varying action of the falls allows it to elude the effect of the Mundurucu hex."

  "I suppose that makes sense, of a sort." Turning from the rollicking, booming torrent to face her, Cezer smiled expectantly. "So—how do we capture some of it and carry it back with us to the forest? Or anywhere else, for that matter?"

  Oskar taunted his companion. "You once told me that, given a clear shot at it, you could catch anything in your paws."

  The younger man held up his human hands. "In my claws, long-face." He indicated his blunt human nails. "With these I would be lucky to catch spaghetti."

  Mamakitty had been giving the matter some thought. "Ever since we left the Fasna Wyzel we have been within a day's walk of pond, or stream, or town. So we don't really need these heavy water bags. We can empty them out and use them to catch and carry rainbow."

  "I'm all for that." Samm grunted approvingly. Which was not surprising, since he was carrying nearly all the water and the bulk of their supplies by himself. The weight would have been better distributed if he had been able to crawl. Traveling upright had disadvantages as well, he mused.

  "Why, what a fine idea!" Cezer gestured expansively into the gorge. "We'll just stroll over to that vaporous band of blurry light, pluck colors from it the way Master Evyndd's visiting help used to pick grapes from his vines, and stuff them in our water bags." His voice dropped to a huskily sardonic, but nonetheless still attractive, murmur. "There's nothing to it. All we need to do is figure out how to catch light with our bare hands."