Espying the cluster of travelers, their expressions reflected mutual surprise. Repressing a sudden embarrassing urge to chase the wagon and bark at its wheels, Oskar approached the slowing vehicle, his right hand upraised.
"Uh, hello there." Flashing a wide smile at the pair of homely countenances perched on the bench seat, he extended his open palm to the driver in the manner of human greeting, even though the creature was manifestly not human. "We're strangers in this country, just recently arrived, and we could use some help and some directions."
The gross drovers exchanged a glance. Then the driver looked down and smiled. It did not much improve his appearance. "Of course we'll help as much as we can, visitor. The Warrow Plains ain't no place to be wandering about. Better you come follow us." Raising a short-handled club, he gestured over the heads of the stoical team. "You're lucky.
Pyackill is just through those there hills. You'll find staying places there, and food, and water."
Cezer had moved up to stand alongside Oskar. "Listen, my good ma—well, whatever you are. What sort of reception are we likely to find in this Pyackill? Us being strangers, and all."
The drover's smile widened. Mildly curious, Oskar tried to count the number of teeth in the impossibly wide maw, giving up when he reached forty-two.
"Why, surely it's strangers you are! Pyackill's one of the friendliest towns in the Red Kingdom. You'll be greeted regular by folks in the street, and people you've never met will reach out to help you." Whereupon he brought the club down hard on Cezer's unprotected and unsuspecting head.
Caught completely off guard, the cat-quick swordsman went down in a heap. Oskar lunged reflexively at the drover, only to feel the fist of the other musterer intercept his face with surprising force. Cocoa was at his side in an instant, as was Mamakitty.
The rowdy brawl quickly spilled out onto the rusted earth as drovers and travelers, bound up together in a ball of flailing arms and kicking legs, tumbled off the wagon's seat. Samm was able to separate them before more than a few drops of blood had been spilled. Clothes had been dirtied, flesh scratched, feelings bruised, and in the course of the fight an embarrassed Cezer had hacked up what turned out to be a couple of old hairballs.
Brushing rust-colored dust from his pants, Oskar glared at the local who had punched him. Before he could speak, the squat drover advanced on him anew. Oskar flinched warily, prepared now to defend himself, but the creature only reached up to clap him on the shoulder.
"Welcome, friend. I'm Baldrup." A thumb jerked in his companion's direction. It resembled a week-old sausage that had been seriously dog-worried. Though it reminded Oskar he was hungry, he resisted the urge to chomp down on it. "That's my brother-in-law Snicklie. Nice to meet you."
"Nice to—?" Struggling to comb dry twigs out of his long blond hair, a fuming Cezer had to be restrained from drawing his sword. "Is this how you greet all your 'friends'?"
Snicklie chuckled, an unexpectedly childish gurgle. "Of course not." He indicated Samm, standing silent and alert behind him. "But your great lumbering colleague here interrupted us before we could finish."
Frowning, Mamakitty delicately fluffed her own black curls, regretting that her fingers were not as adept at the task as her tongue would have been. "Are you trying to tell us that this is your way of showing friendship?"
Baldrup gazed longingly at the club Samm had gently but firmly removed from the drover's grasp. "How else does one greet good friends?"
"And this is how everyone here acknowledges guests? Including those 'friendly' folk you spoke of who inhabit the town we're about to enter?" When both blithely smiling drovers nodded in unison, Mamakitty hastily called for her companions to gather around her. "Would you excuse us for a moment?"
Still straightening their rumpled clothing, the disconcerted travelers stepped off to one side to caucus quietly.
"This doesn't make any sense." Taj was both worried and bemused.
"Sure it does," argued Cezer. "They're crazy. This is a crazy place, so what more normal than for it to be inhabited by crazy people?" His whiskers would have been twitching nervously had he possessed any.
"They're not crazy." Cocoa spoke softly but with the feeling that she was right. "They just have different customs."
"Different is too fine a word for it," commented Oskar.
"We're going to have to be very careful here. The more someone 'likes' you, the harder the hit they may expect you to absorb." He glanced back at the two drovers, who stood waiting patiently for their new acquaintances to finish conferencing. "I mean, a friendly nip is one thing, but that wasn't exactly a pat on the head."
"He's right," agreed Mamakitty. "And we may very well be expected to hit back, lest we be accused of being standoffish. Or worse, deliberately unfriendly."
Rubbing his elbow where he had landed when everyone had tumbled off the wagon, Cezer wore a grim expression. "That I can do. In fact," he added warningly, "if we run into any more of this local 'friendliness,' they may find me the most polite individual ever to visit this town."
Oskar whacked him on the shoulder, and the other man whirled sharply to confront him. "Just being friendly, old friend. If we're going to get through this and find the white light we need to take back with us, we're going to have to learn how to adapt to local customs."
"How about I adapt your nose?" Cezer growled.
Mamakitty took a firm grip on his arm. "Not now. Let's thank these two for their offer of assistance, tell them we'll be delighted to follow them into the city, and see if they can supply information as well as guidance. And remember: be courteous."
"With pleasure." Allowing her to hold on to his arm, Cezer ground one fist into the open palm of his other hand. "Just tell me when you want me to be friendly, and to whom."
"I will," she assured him, "and you need to trim your claws—um, nails."
Oskar accompanied Cocoa on the walk back to the wagon. "It makes sense, I suppose. In a red country, what more natural than that everyone should be red-tempered?"
"I fear there will be many times before this search is over when we're going to have to suppress our natural instincts and think and act the reverse of what is normal." Her musk was subtle and distinctive in his nostrils. With a start, he realized that the drovers and their dray animals had hardly any body odor at all.
"Easy to say," Oskar commented. "But which 'natural instincts' do we repress? Mine are canine, yours are feline, and Taj and Samm's instincts are completely different from either. Do we repress those instincts, or those of humans, or both?"
It not being any easy question, she had no ready reply for him. "Well, for a start, try to remember not to pee on anybody's leg."
He responded with a sour smile. "Thanks, Cocoa. I think I could have figured that one out for myself." Silently, he started looking for a bush to complete the business that had begun to preoccupy another part of his thoughts.
"It's very nice to meet you, and we'll be glad to follow you into this Pyackill, and to listen to any other advice you have to impart." Mamakitty nodded at Samm. "Give him back his cudgel."
Baldrup accepted the club with a thankful nod, hefted it briefly, and considered its proximity to Mamakitty's head.
"Don't do it," she warned him as she took a step back. "I'll scratch your eyes out."
The drover looked hurt. "Oh, well. If you want to be formal about things." Picking up the knotted ends of the net-like reins, he pursed rubbery lips and blew a sharp whistle. The low-slung, lumbering dray animals lurched forward, and the wagon began to move again. Not wishing to become too painfully chummy with their newfound friends, the travelers were careful to keep close to the vehicle but well beyond arm's length.
Pyackill was more city than town. It reminded Mamakitty and Oskar of the visit they had once made to Zelevin in the company of Master Evyndd. There were more people and activity in one place than either of them had ever seen before. Suffused in the local tones of red, it projected an air of normalcy they had not experie
nced since the Mundurucu had banished color from the Gowdlands. As for the other travelers, from Cocoa to Samm they were overwhelmed by the profusion of unfamiliar sights and sounds and smells.
"And I used to think that the world was a big place when Master Evyndd let us roam the forest beyond the yard fence." As Cocoa marveled at the multistoried buildings of red brick, the peaked slate roofs, and the hard squarish stones that paved the streets, she had to fight down the urge to go climbing.
"Think how Samm and I must feel." Taj indicated the bustling two-way traffic flow of massed humans and animals and beings he did not recognize. "At least all of you were allowed out of the house. We were but rarely let out of our cages, and that always inside."
"There is so much more to see." The giant trod behind the wagon, careful where he put his feet lest he step on some unwary citizen. He was still getting used to legs as a means of locomotion.
"Especially from your vantage point, so unlike that of the worm's-eye view you had before," Cezer indelicately pointed out.
Samm was not offended. "No, that is not so very different. If you will remember, when Master Evyndd used to let me out of my cage, I was fond of ascending to the very top shelves of the kitchen and resting there."
"I can attest to that." Taj gave his new companion a tentative jab in the ribs that the giant hardly felt. "It wasn't very comforting to have you staring at me eye to eye from across the room."
Samm gazed down at the much smaller songster. "I could never reach your cage. The gap was always too great. Master Evyndd knew that." He smiled reassuringly. The expression came naturally to him, since snakes are very good at smiling. "Anyway, you never really tempted me. You weren't enough of a meal to be worth the effort." From behind, he gave Cezer a nudge that sent the other man stumbling. "In your original state, however, you would have made a filling repast. I often imagined all that fur sliding down my throat."
"Very enlightening. And quit staring at me."
"Sorry." The giant averted his gaze. "I wasn't aware that I was."
"Though I have little personal experience of such things, this seems to be a prosperous community." Ignoring her companions' irrelevant verbal byplay, Mamakitty was studying their surroundings, absorbing the look and feel and smell of everything they passed. For their part, they drew a few stares of their own, mostly due to Samm's unignorable presence among them.
"Oh yes." Baldrup smiled down at her. "Pyackill is the most important trading center in this part of the kingdom. Everyone who is anyone comes to Pyackill." Reaching over, he smacked her on the back of her neck. Thick black curls cushioned the impact somewhat. Rubbing the place where the drover had made contact, she did not hesitate to punch him in the leg. He was plainly delighted by the blow.
"And beyond Pyackill," Oskar inquired curiously. "What lies beyond here?"
"You really are strangers, aren't you?" Snicklie rubbed his squashed nose with the flat of one hand, making squeaking noises. "The kingdom stretches as far as one can imagine to north and south. To the west," he pointed, "it goes for only a short distance before fading into the Sere Desert, where it is too hot for anything to survive."
"Hotter than this?" Taj had just finished taking a sip from his water bag. In general, he dipped less frequently into his supplies than did his companions. This was only to be expected, since he drank like a bird.
"Hotter than you can imagine. Too hot even to breathe. Nothing lives there." Leaning over the side of the wagon, Snicklie spat something pinkish into the street, just missing an outraged pedestrian. "To the east is the Kingdom of Orange."
Oskar nodded thoughtfully. "That would make sense. And beyond that I presume there are other kingdoms both distinctive of and defined by color?"
Snicklie made a face within a face. "I wouldn't know about that. My brother-in-law and I are simple farmers, not world travelers."
"What seek you here?" In spite of the seeming handicap imposed by his stunted arms, Baldrup was doing a skilled job of directing the wagon through increasingly boisterous traffic.
"White light. A baneful hex has banished all the color from our kingdom. We have been charged by our former master with returning it. To do that we have determined that we need to bring back to our kingdom as much white light as we can carry, since white light contains all the colors that are now absent."
The two homunculi exchanged a doubtful glance. "I don't see how such a thing is possible." Snicklie was leaning over, but despite his feelings of sympathy, he did not strike out at Oskar. "Even if it is, you won't find what you're looking for here. There is no color in the Kingdom of Red but red."
"That is the way of things, and how they should be." Baldrup hesitated but briefly before continuing. "Though on business I myself once crossed the border to visit the Kingdom of Orange."
"What was it like?" Cocoa asked him.
"Personally, I found it chilly, and the folk there not very friendly. There is little commerce between our two kingdoms, though we get on well enough with one another. They keep to themselves, and we to ours, which suits us both." He was nodding absently to himself. "Colors should not mix."
"Oh, I don't know about that." Cocoa looked thoughtful. "If you mix red with—"
Mamakitty cut her off with a warning look. "Now Cocoa, we're here as visitors, as guests. We don't want to offend anybody's beliefs."
Cocoa was not so easily silenced. "Color isn't a belief. Color is—just color. Mixing them doesn't hurt—"
"What lies beyond the Kingdom of Orange?" Oskar asked hastily.
"I don't know." Baldrup shrugged broad shoulders. "There are rumors, and I hear stories. Some are hard to credit." His smile returned as he chucked the shards of net rein gripped in his left hand. "Red I have always been, red I will always be, and red-on-red is good enough for me."
"Greetings, visitors! Buy my fresh produce?" An old crone with a remarkably attenuated face held out a small, triangular fruit from the oversize sack balanced on her bent back. Or maybe she was an old crow. Attempting to estimate the length of her astonishing beak, Oskar couldn't be sure.
"I'm not hungry," replied Cezer, keeping aloof.
"Well, you look like a nice biped. Have a taste on me." She passed him the fruit with one withered hand and struck him square in the snout with the other.
"Why, you vicious old bitch!" Startled and hurt, Cezer raised his fist to strike back. Oskar noted the elderly peddler's expectant smile.
"Go on, Cezer—hit her. One good turn deserves another." He was smiling hugely at his companion's discomfort.
"Psst, that's right—I forgot." The other man promptly lowered his raised arm. "Madam, despite the provocation, I am a gentleman, and I am not going to hit you."
The crone (or crow) spat at his feet and her expression twisted. "Ill-mannered and disrespectful to your elders, is it?" Reaching out, she snatched back the fruit she had given him. "Buy from another, then. You won't find fresher produce."
"Got any seed?" Taj inquired. The long-snouted head shook regretfully.
Bewildered and troubled, Cezer edged closer to the wagon, head bowed, back hunched, hands clasped behind his back. "I do not like this place: no, I do not."
"Don't be downcast. Pyackill's as friendly a community as is to be found in the south of the kingdom. You'll soon settle in." With this assurance, a cheerful Snicklie extended a friendly hand of his own. The stick it held caught the brooding Cezer on the side of his head, sending him stumbling forward. Oskar had to take hold of the other man to keep him from drawing his sword.
With an effort, Cezer let the several inches of steel he had exposed slide slowly back into their scabbard. "I don't know how much longer I can take this, Oskar. Everything here is backward." He rubbed his nose. "And for us, that makes things doubly backward."
"Which should make them forward again," Oskar responded unhelpfully. "To us the local ways seem strange, but they are otherwise to the people who live here. Whose help," he reminded his friend, "we need. Just remember that they s
ee everything through red-colored glasses." Convinced that Cezer had regained control over his emotions, Oskar let him go. "Maybe to get along here successfully we just need to be a little less human and a little more like our natural selves."
"Okay." Wetting one palm, Cezer used it to straighten his hair where the stick had mussed the blond locks. "But no matter how 'friendly' we have to become, I'm not biting anything like these two on the back of their neck."
"I'll handle the formal greetings for you," Oskar assured him. "I used to quite like pawing new acquaintances."
"We have to find not only a respectable quantity of white light," Mamakitty was telling Baldrup, "but white light we can carry back with us."
"Light you can carry." The drover looked dubious. "A difficult task, surely. But now that I have had time to ponder on it, perhaps not as impossible as first I thought."
"You know where we can find such things?" Cocoa eyed him eagerly, at the same time taking care to keep out of club range.
"No." At her crestfallen expression the drover added, "But I can tell you the best place to look." He nodded forward, over the low-slung heads of his team. "In the central marketplace, where we are only now arriving. If it's not for sale there, it's not to be found anywhere in the Kingdom of Red."
If the travelers thought the city was lively, the marketplace overwhelmed them. Stalls, shops, carts, individual traders, all hawked red-tinged goods and unfamiliar services in the vast paved square that surrounded the single lengthy two-story structure that was the original market. There was so much to see that it was impossible to take it all in. They saw no one selling light, white or otherwise, but Baldrup advised them such eclectic specialties might best be searched for within the main market building itself.
To show their thanks, the travelers helped Baldrup and Snicklie to unload their wagon and set up their stall. Formal farewells and thanks they left to Samm, who could best absorb the neighborly blows the two escorts proceeded to rain upon his legs and belly. Surrounded by traders and peddlers who walked, lurched, humped, waddled, hopped, and slithered about the square, the visitors from Fasna Wyzel made their way toward the crowded market building.
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