Kingdoms of Light

by Alan Dean Foster

  Within those high, narrow walls, the noise level of chatting, complaining, and trading was magnified to such a degree it had Oskar marveling that any business could be conducted at all. It was impossible to know where to begin.

  "Let's try that booth over there." Mamakitty pointed. "At the moment it doesn't appear to be too crowded, so the proprietress may be willing to talk."

  "Talk is fine," murmured Taj. "But I'm standing back. In case she decides she wants to get friendly."

  Aside from being as naturally red-faced as her fellow merchants (face rouge would not be a big seller in this kingdom, Cocoa reflected), the proprietress in question differed from anyone they had yet encountered. She had the broad, flat face of their benefactors Baldrup and Snicklie, but there any similarity ended. Unlike them, her countenance was not in the least humanoid. Spinelike whiskers protruded at least a foot from the sides of her huge, dark mouth. This somewhat intimidating maw was lined with slender, needle-like teeth that made those of the quoll look blunt. Her eyes were wide and wild, with enormous dark pupils. In contrast, the dress and apron she wore were pure homespun.

  "Ses sirs, ses sirs, what will it be for thee today?" Her voice was a mewling cackle, soft yet sinister. Except for the friendly blow she aimed at Cocoa, her demeanor was pleasant enough. It was the only thing engaging about her. The opaque jars stacked on the rickety shelves behind her did not invite closer inspection. "Sou be hungry, I see. Biski, she can tell a hungry traveler when she see one!"

  "We really just need some information," Oskar began, only to have Cezer elbow him aside.

  "Speak for yourself! Me, I'm starving!"

  "A sample for the gentleman?" Holding out a spine-tipped hand, the creature passed something unseen to the eager cat-man. Hardly sparing it a glance, he gave a shrug, and downed the free offering in one swallow. His companions watched and waited expectantly.

  "What are you all looking at?" The young man smiled contentedly. "Tastes like chicken, with a hint of pepper and sage." His smile fluttered somewhat. "Quite a lot of pepper, actually. No, it's not pepper." Now thoroughly absorbed by what he had swallowed, his expression changed to one of intense introspection, then uncertainty, and finally amusement as he burst out laughing.

  "What's so funny?" Samm wanted to know. Despite what his friends thought, the giant did have a sense of humor. It was not his fault that his former throat did not allow for laughing.

  "Don't—know." Cezer was chortling so hard he found it difficult to talk. "Something—inside—tickling!"

  "Of course." Tugging a protective cloth aside, the merchant Biski exposed her samples to the sun—and to full view of her potential customers. "Tastiest eat-treats in all of Pyackill. And the most active, ses!"

  Oskar leaned forward and stared. The countertop she had exposed was full of food—and full of motion. That in itself was not so very unusual. What was unsettling was that they were one and the same. All of the food was perambulating; in different ways, by different means.

  There were plump round red globes with taut skins that resembled cherry tomatoes—except that each floundered on dozens of highly active, tiny feet. Baskets of berries were covered with fine cilia that kept them in constant motion. Corpulent vegetables skittered back and forth and bumped into one another on appendages that resembled stiffened fish fins. Some of the minuscule limbs were of familiar design: others were entirely new to the travelers.

  "Your food—walks around," Mamakitty observed aloud. The urge to swat at the ambulatory foodstuffs was almost overpowering. A human would not do such a thing, she reminded herself.

  "Welp, of course it walks! Or crawls, or slithers, or otherwise moseys about." Huge dark pupils narrowed slightly. "Mean to tell Biski that sou don't like food that moves after you've eaten it?" Cocoa was leaning fretfully over Cezer, who by now was lying on the ground writhing in pain from laughing so hard.

  "It isn't that," Mamakitty explained delicately. "We're new to the area, you see, so we're new to the food as well. Your offerings in particular are certainly—exceptional."

  Oskar's concern as he indicated the prone, thrashing Cezer was more immediate. "Exotic new foods can be hard to digest. Our friend seems to be having some trouble."

  Biski leaned over the counter full of meandering foodstuffs. "Too rich for him, is it? Maybe I shouldn't have offered him a nokus on an empty stomach." She indicated a dish full of lustrous fruits that resembled olives on wheels. They kept racing around the dish and banging into one another. "He'll be all right in a few minutes, once the nokus rollers have started to dissolve in his belly. Though I must say I disagree with your opinion. Your friend isn't exactly suffering."

  Gazing up out of frantic eyes, Cezer continued to cackle hysterically. Oskar smiled back, ignoring the other man's look of murderous rage, and reached out to catch the curious vendor with a solid right hook across her long face. From where she was kneeling beside Cezer, Cocoa looked startled, and even Mamakitty was taken aback.

  Not Biski, though. Staggered by the blow, her huge mouth made gulping motions, like a fish out of water fighting for oxygen. "Now that's more like it, stranger-man! For a while there I thought sou were going to play the patrician with me, like the richy folk who always have their sniffers stuck high in the air when they deign to visit the marketplace." She rubbed spine-tipped fingers together. "What can I sell sou?"

  "As we said," Oskar repeated. "Some information."

  "What we need to buy, sou—you don't sell," added Cocoa.

  "Mnmph, is that so? Try me. What be your pleasure, then?"

  Oskar wondered if those enormous pupils let her work her booth as effortlessly at night as in the daytime. "We come from a land of many colors."

  "Many colors!" The elderly crone wiped dirty spines against her apron. "Who ever heard of such a thing! But it is true that I am not well traveled, and what do I know of the greater world? Many colors, say sou? Even in such a place, though, red is still best, ses?"

  "Yes, of course," agreed Mamakitty diplomatically. "But a hex has been placed on our kingdom that has wiped out nearly all color. To restore what has been lost, we need to return with a quantity of white light, which contains within it all colors."

  Once more the gaping beak gulped air. "Many colors, white light—what strange places exist beyond Pyackill!" As she stood behind her counter of animated food contemplating their request, the rubbing of her wide chin by one spiny hand produced a sound like a fly trying to force its way through a metal grate. "Light is not my specialty." Raising her other hand, she pointed to a stall at the very end of the long building.

  "See that red flag hanging there?—well, they all be red, I suppose—try Phuswick's booth. He gets around a good deal, he does. Has superior taste in victuals and always buys the best from me. If anyone in Pyackill can sell sou white light, Phuswick it be."

  "Thank you." To add emphasis to his gratitude, Oskar tried to kick her under the counter, but it was too wide and his foot would not reach her spindly, spiny legs. Noting the gesture, she gargled merrily at him, a twinkle in one enormous eye. Reaching up with a finger, she removed the irritation and flicked it aside.

  "That's all right, stranger-man. It be the thought that counts."

  EIGHT

  With a name like Phuswick, Oskar expected the occupant of the booth to be fully human, perhaps plump of form and amiable of aspect. He was neither. A Very Large Bug presided over the contents of a gigantic antique shop whose inventory had been squashed and smashed and squeezed down to fit into one of the fifty or so booths that lined both sides of the market building's busy interior. The variety of goods on display in the stall was breathtaking, as was the efflux that emanated from their owner.

  Delighting in the opportunity to visit the interior of a covered structure with a ceiling high enough to allow him to stand without bending, Samm stood in the middle of the mob, customers and tourists and merchants swirling around him like penguins cavorting madly about an iceberg. Taj remained at his friend's side, w
hile Cezer and Cocoa were happy to stay in the background. That left it, as usual, to Oskar and Mamakitty to endure the majestic stink as they queried the proprietor.

  "You're Phuswick?" Oskar half hoped the bug would reply in the negative.

  "I am," hummed the recipient of the inquiry. His voice was smooth as maple butter, a startling contrast to his fetor and appearance. Big red-black compound eyes regarded the new customers. Between them, a mucousy proboscis probed a plate of chopped bits of something whose identity Oskar preferred not to know. It was no revelation that this trader would be a good customer of Biski's hyperactive cuisine.

  "What can I interest you fine people in today? Perhaps a—" Leaning back in his hard wooden chair, the vendor reached for a quivering object that was languishing on a middle shelf.

  "No, don't touch that!" Though far from squeamish, even Mamakitty had limits to her fortitude. "Please don't touch that." Eyeing the proprietor, she felt a surge of guilt at all the bugs she had toyed with and crunched in the not so distant past.

  "Well, all right." Straightening in his chair thrust his body odor even more forcefully in the direction of his customers. "What, then? Or have you come to try and sell me something?" A clawed foreleg indicated the overflowing stock. "I am in need of nothing today. As you can see, my inventory is quite high at the moment."

  Maybe if you used some perfume, or scented lotion, you'd have more customers, Oskar thought. Actually, once you got used to it, the smell wasn't so very much stronger than wet dog. Aloud, he inquired straightforwardly, "Biski sent us. She said that if anyone in Pyackill had what we needed, you would be the one to see."

  "Ah, Biski!" the vendor buzzed. "Lovely Biski. Almost arthropoid, I like to think of her. Breeder of the best stubbleblips in the kingdom, too." Focusing on Oskar, much to the latter's olfactory discomfort, the merchant hummed, "What is it you need?"

  "White light," declared Mamakitty flatly, sacrificing her momentary anonymity to spare Oskar the full brunt of the vendor's stench. "We need to acquire a large quantity of white light."

  "And something to carry it in," added Cocoa from behind.

  Having nothing to frown with, Phuswick had to settle for emitting a series of uncertain buzzes, as if he were aloft and abruptly losing wing power. "White light? You want to buy white light?"

  "You don't know what it is." Cezer sighed in disappointment.

  Looking past Oskar, the vendor replied sharply. "Of course I know what it is! Do you think me ignorant, one-lens? White light," he muttered, "is the light of all lights."

  "Yes, that's it!" Pushing forward, an excited Cocoa tried to descry which of the dozens, of the hundreds of jars and alembics, pots and bottles, might contain the vital ephemera they had come to find. "Where is it?"

  "Not here," the vendor snapped. "I'm a shopkeeper; not a theurgist. You won't find something as evanescent as white light for sale in a stolid, workaday place like Pyackill. If you really mean to have it, the acquiring will require more from you than money. It demands courage and skill, boldness and stealth."

  "Then you know someone who does have it for sale?" asked Mamakitty as she slapped away the filching fingers of a would-be pickpocket. The tousle-haired boinkle grinned up at her as he hopped beyond her reach.

  "Nice to meet you, too, stinky lady!" He smirked.

  "I know of someone who might be able tell you where to find it." The fetid vendor rubbed his rear wings together.

  "Then all we have to do is ask?" inquired Oskar eagerly.

  "In a manner of speaking. You need to talk to those who guard our border with lands of other light. You need to talk to the Red Dragoons."

  Oskar nodded to indicate his understanding. "Doesn't sound too difficult. Where do we find these red dragons?"

  "Not dragons—dragoons. On the border with the Kingdom of Orange, due east from here," Phuswick explained. "Be on your best behavior. You know how soldiers can be."

  " 'All we have to do is ask.'" Cezer made a disgusted noise. "The Master once had a group of soldiers stay several days with him, discussing how knowledge sorceral related to matters military. I didn't like them. They wouldn't let me sleep in their laps, or scratch on their boots."

  "This lot probably won't either," Oskar pointed out dryly. "Better get used to the idea now."

  Cezer nodded tersely. "Don't worry. This shape doesn't seem suited to such pleasurable activities." He grinned at Cocoa. "Bet they'd let you sleep in their laps, silky-skin."

  She made a face. "I'd rather scratch boots."

  "We'll do it." Mamakitty's tone was firm if not entirely assured. "We'll question these soldiers, find the white light, and take it back with us."

  "But not today, for I'll wager this outpost doesn't lie close to the city limits."

  "Hardly," murmured Phuswick. Rising from his chair, he lurched forward until he was standing fragrantly close to Oskar and Mamakitty. "I'll draw you a map, as best I can recall from what I know. Beyond that, you're on your own. I can give you no further help. I don't do much buzzing around soldiers." Reaching out, he gave Oskar's nose a severe twist. "But I'm only doing this because I like you," he finished as Mamakitty, palm cupped protectively over her face, ducked back out of his reach.

  The narrow road through the Glavieb Hills was surfaced with reddish clay. For several days subsequent to leaving Pyackill, traffic grew progressively thinner, until a last trio of farmers parted ways with the travelers not far back up the road.

  "This must be harsh country in which to raise crops." Taj was striding along easily, one hand shading his eyes from the sizzling red sun as he studied the rugged hills through which they had been climbing for the better part of the day.

  "Depends on local conditions, I suppose." Nudging a rock aside with one booted foot, Cocoa exposed the carmine-colored cockroach that had been hiding beneath. It scurried off in search of a more secure place of concealment. No ordinary human would have heard the skritching of its tiny feet, but like her companions, Cocoa was neither ordinary nor entirely human. She fought off the urge to chase down the cockroach, trap it under one hand, and eat it.

  Something came screaming down the slope toward them. Mamakitty ducked, while Oskar and Cezer reacted by drawing their swords. The bird was red-blue, with enormous splayed wings and a single eye set in the middle of its skull. There were tiny teeth in its beak, and as it rocketed past the travelers it snapped at Mamakitty's curls. Then it was gone, an ominous presence soaring out of sight below boulders and ridges they had just traversed.

  Straightening, Mamakitty felt gingerly of her coiffure. It was intact, as was her scalp. "Never saw anything like that before."

  "Maybe it was just trying to be 'friendly,' in the local manner," Cezer suggested dryly. "Maybe it wasn't even a bird."

  "Oh, it was a bird, all right." Taj spoke with some authority on the matter. "Not a seed-eater, either."

  Though the unexpected and brief assault had harmed no one, they remained on high alert as they continued to ascend, scrambling over boulders and rocks with effortless agility. Only Taj, unaccustomed to climbing, had any trouble with the ascent, and he was helped over the rough spots by his companions.

  It took several days of steady tramping to reach the border country, during which time the harshness of much of the terrain slowly gave way to increasingly lush vegetation. Rivulets became streams, streams became rivers, as the entire character of the landscape through which they were marching lost its rough edge.

  It also lost some of its all-pervasive color. The hardy red tint that had stained everyone and everything they had encountered since Taj had first stumbled into the rainbow at the base of the Shalouan Falls grew muted. They were entering a region where two colors of the rainbow melded, as one kingdom gave way to another.

  Oskar was especially pleased by the transformation. Not that he particularly disliked the color red, but in addition to the heat it seemed to amplify, its multiple variations had a way of sanctifying the kind of mannered hostility they hoped to leave be
hind.

  Certainly the coloration of the atmosphere, as well as the countryside, was becoming noticeably softened. In the distance, rolling hills covered with thick vegetation took on a distinctive orange hue. Perhaps, he hoped, they were about to enter a land where courtesy was not founded on the prickliness of physical contact. But first they had to make certain they were traveling in the right direction.

  There was no need to spend time searching for the Red Dragoons. As soon as they reached the main river, they found themselves confronted by a pair of those splendidly uniformed border guards.

  "Travel documents, please." Cerise light glinted from the brightly polished helmet of the young man who bent low in the saddle of his kudu to query Oskar.

  "I'm afraid we don't have any documents. We're strangers here, having come from," he thought rapidly before concluding, "far to the west. From the other side of the Kingdom of Red."

  The dragoon's companion laughed softly at this, but the one asking the questions did not smile. "Oh, come now, traveler. What do you take me for? There are no kingdoms to the west of Red. Beyond that farthest border the climate grows too hot for intelligent life. Nothing can survive there."

  "Nevertheless," put in Mamakitty, sensing that Oskar needed support, "that is where we come from. But our country is not so very hot. Not even as hot as this. We traveled hence by means you would not understand."

  "Ah!" The dragoon sat up straight in his saddle. "Then you are magicians!"

  "We certainly owe our presence here to magic," Oskar admitted truthfully.

  "They don't look like magicians." The other rider spoke for the first time. Oskar noted that he had four horns protruding from his head, a third eye in the center of his forehead, and only three long fingers on each hand. "And they smell funny. Especially that one." He indicated Oskar, who looked hurt.

  "It's not for us to decide." The soldier who had carried the conversation backed his steed a couple of paces. "You must come with us to the post. Captain Covalt will decide what is to be done with you."