"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.
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 th
eir 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 y
ou 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.
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