Alan Foster - Kingdoms of Light

Taj stared at her. "You have a way, Mamakitty, of rendering the most profound developments as plain and uncomplicated as a morning's bath. It so happens that I hate that."

"But she's right." Burly and hirsute, a naked Oskar stood gazing at the arch beneath which they had so recently passed in haste. "If we can find friendly scholars within the kingdom, maybe they can revive our human forms permanently."

A naked Cezer eyed his friend thoughtfully. "Is that what you want, Oskar? To have this body type made permanent? To be a human for all time?"

It was a question Oskar, along with every one of his companions, had been forced to contemplate ever since the miraculous transformation that had taken place in Master Evyndd's dwelling. He thought of lazy summer days spent doing nothing but lolling in the sun, of burying bones only to extract them later, at leisure, when they had been properly aged. Of rolling in piles of leaves, or inhaling the scent of a wandering bitch in heat. He thought of all that, and none of it accompanied by a care in the world.

"No," he replied finally. "I'd rather be a dog."

"Even though," Cocoa asked him in a voice he could not quite place, "it would mean that we couldn't talk to one another again, and would have to communicate once more only through touches and smells, barks and meows?"

Maybe he replied without thinking. Or maybe he was simply voicing the truth of how he felt without considering other, previously inconceivable, possibilities.

"I would miss being able to communicate with the rest of you this way. I would miss the ability to talk. But dammit, I'm a dog, not a human . I like walking on four legs instead of having to balance on two. I miss my full sense of smell, and sight, and—other things. Maybe one day I'll have the chance to be one again. But not here. Not in this place. My home, our home, is the Fasna Wyzel, in the Gowdlands. If the Fates decree it, I'll be a dog there, and a contented one, but not until the evil of the Khaxan Mundurucu has been snuffed out and the color they have stolen is returned to the land. That much the Master Evyndd charged us with, and that much will I do before I worry about the matter of what kind of body I really want for myself."

It was quiet on the beach. Embarrassed, Oskar realized he had been pontificating. It was most unlike him. He would have wagged his tail reassuringly, but the one possessed by humans was not well designed for such animated demonstrations.

Mamakitty finally broke the hushed silence. "If we're going to do this thing, we'd best be about it. If we don't hide the clothes that we left behind on the street when we changed back, some enterprising citizens are sure to help themselves to the unclaimed booty. We might have need of those garments again."

A wary Oskar headed slowly in the direction of the arch. "Funny how quickly you become used to something like hands." He peered down at his fingers. "On the other hand, so to speak, I surely do miss having four feet to run upon. Having now spent some time in this form, it's a wonderment to me how human people keep from always running into one another."

Cezer paced alongside him, neither insulting nor joking now. "I never cease to wonder, my friend, how it is that humans can even stand, let alone keep from falling over."

"And without a tail to help balance them," Cocoa added, unaware as ever of the transmogrified attractiveness of her own.

This time they were not taken by surprise when, upon entering a short distance into the city, they once again reverted to their animal selves. Much to everyone's relief their human garb, which they would need again when they left the Kingdom of Purple, remained undisturbed in the same scattered piles where it had been abandoned on the empty street. As he watched his friends drag and push the clothing into a small opening beneath one structure, Taj reflected from on high that they were fortunate they had not entered the metropolis via a main thoroughfare, where their brazenly unclothed appearance might have attracted more than mere comment. It took all of them, working together, to move Samm's great axe into an open culvert.

Taking care to memorize the location so they could be certain to find it again, they gathered together in a darkening purple-stained alley to consider how best to proceed. Beautiful strange though it was, as they continued to advance deeper into the metropolis Oskar was leery of the towering purple structures and the distant sounds that reached them. Completely at ease in the gathering darkness, the cats and Samm the snake were less intimidated. Only the sunlight-loving Taj shared his canine companion's growing anxiety.

"Relax, Oskar." How strange, Cezer felt, to be walking once again on four legs instead of two. How effortlessly it all came back. "This is a place of beauty, not danger. I can feel it." He grinned, showing sharp teeth. "Cat-sense, you know. We're overdue to explore a kingdom that's not overrun with dangers." He halted suddenly, every muscle alert, yellow eyes fixed on a pile of wooden crates stacked neatly against one wall.

"What is it?" Taj whispered uneasily from above. "The danger you say you didn't sense?"

"No." With Cezer advancing in stealthy cat-fashion toward the crates, it was a barely audible Cocoa who replied. "Dinner."

The swordsman-cat leaped in perfect silence, his forepaws coming down on a small purple-gray shape that tried, unsuccessfully, to avoid the lethal furry pounce. There was a short, sharp squeak, a soft yowl of elation from Cezer, followed by a stream of invective that was as trenchant as it was unexpected.

"You blithering idiot!" the tiny voice protested accusingly. "You couthless furry imbecile! What do you think you're doing?"

"I—" The astonishment in Cezer's voice was plain.

A flurry of diminutive protests joined the first, shaping a miniature chorus of outrage. "Let go of him! … Are you out of your kitty-catty mind? … Who do you think you are?…

Release him this instant!"

Oskar and the others approached tentatively. The source of the combustible complaining was immediately apparent, as was the source of Cezer's incredulity.

Trapped between his front paws was a mouse. It was a perfectly ordinary-looking mouse—if one discounted its cultivated gestures, scandalized expression, and the way it was furiously shaking one finger in its captor's face. Surrounding it were half a dozen other mice, a pair of enraged rats, and one slightly somnolent but obviously irked vole. Tiny fists and feet hammered on Cezer's forelegs and flanks in an attempt to get him to release his captive.

"I think," murmured Mamakitty, "that all is not what it seems in this place, and that you had best let him go, Cezer."

"Let him go?" Though more than a little stunned by the nature of his prey's resistance, not to mention that of its friends, he was reluctant. "I don't care if he does talk. Dinner is dinner."

"I'm nobody's dinner, hairball-for-brains!" Despite Cezer's words, the mouse remained defiant rather than fearful. "Do you want my friends to call the Night Guard? Where are you from, anyway? You act like you just wandered in off the beach."

"As a matter of fact…," Samm began slowly, slightly slurring his ess.

"I might've guessed." Folding both forelegs across its tiny chest, the mouse glared at Cezer while tapping one hind foot impatiently against the pavement.

"'Night Guard.'" Oskar put a cautioning forepaw on Cezer's leg. "I don't care for the sound of that."

"Let it go." Cocoa had come up on the tomcat's other side. "We can always catch more later."

"You'll do nothing of the sort," the mouse declared firmly. "You really are new here, aren't you?" In response to Mamakitty's nod, the rodent sighed. "All right. I was looking forward to a nice, relaxing evening, but I can see that I'm going to spend it rebutting ignorance instead. Not that I have any choice. It's every citizen of the kingdom's responsibility to take new arrivals in hand and explain the realities of life to them."