Alan Foster - Kingdoms of Light

Stunned by the ferocity of his companions' counterattack, Oskar stood and wondered how he could best assist in the clash. Starting forward at a trot and then breaking into a run, he resolved that if he could only chomp down on a single Mundurucu leg and hold it in place, he would have done his part.

As soon as he decided to move, it seemed as if he was flying across the ground, clearing whole sections of lawn with each stride. It was only as he leaped into the midst of the fracas that he caught the briefest possible glimpse of himself, reflected in the water of the small fishpond that marked the farthest reach of the old homestead's formal landscaping.

Expecting to see the scrungy, scruggy mutt he had once been, he was startled to find himself looking down at the most enormous wolf-dog that ever there was. He was even bigger than the two leopards, and nearly as massive as Cezer himself. If further confirmation of the "growth" he had undergone was needed, it was plain to see in the terrified eyes of the Mundurucu among whom he landed.

It was only when a furious and badly frayed Kobkale managed to gather a dozen of his brethren together to form a desperate goblinish pyramid, with himself at the apex, that the struggle turned in favor of the intruders. Ringing out across the field of battle, the words of the surviving Clan froze the combatants in their tracks. Hexed into submission, Oskar suddenly discovered he could move only his head. His legs would no longer respond to his commands. His tremendously powerful lupine jaws were stained black with Mundurucu blood.

Surveying the lawn and the fringing forest, Kobkale trembled with fury. No less than half a dozen of his kinsfolk lay dead upon the grass, torn to pieces by wolf fang and cat claw or crushed by the coils of an immense snake weighing hundreds of pounds. That now-paralyzed serpent glared at the nominal leader of the Mundurucu out of unblinking eyes, wishing only to be allowed to wrap a single small coil around the squat body. But Samm had been as thoroughly immobilized as his four-legged friends. Frozen by the hastily scribed spell, he lay motionless on the bloodied lawn.

"Pox upon you!" Kobkale screamed, nearly insensible with rage. "Malisons and murder, blood and bone!" From the assembled hands of the inhuman pyramid, stubby fingers thrust forth at the anesthetized animals. "You're going to die, die, die!" Safe now, protected by his riven incantation, Kobkale hopped down from the crest of his willing but none too stable platform. The rest of the surviving Mundurucu followed close behind him.

Approaching the helpless Cezer, who if free to move could have killed the Mundurucu with a single blow of one massive paw, Kobkale stuck his face inches from that of the disabled lion. Yellow cat eyes glared murder back at the Clan leader.

"Do you know what we're going to do, cat? First we're going to cook and eat your gonads. Then your tongue, and then your eyes, and then your insides, one organ at a time. Only then, maybe, will we let you die." Straightening, he swept his short, thick arms in a wide, all-encompassing arc. "Then, just for the pleasure of it, we're going to lay waste every cat and dog in these miserable lands, so that there will be none and nothing left to remind us of the slaughter you have made here among our kinfolk." Stepping back, he turned to face the house of the wizard Susnam Evyndd.

"But first," he fumed softly, "we'll wipe this wretched dwelling and all it contains from the face of the earth, so that it and everything in it that stinks of that beggarly sorcerer are consigned to his soon-to-be-forgotten memory." Raising one hand, he was joined in the gesture by several of his colleagues.

At their chant and urging, a fist-size ball of flame appeared. Drawing back his hand, Kobkale flung his fingers in the direction of the cottage. Obediently, the fire followed the line of his throw, to land on the thatched roof that a human Mamakitty had been so recently engaged in repairing. The dry roofing ignited quickly. Within minutes, much of the cottage was engulfed in roaring flame.

A sudden realization made Oskar struggle harder than ever against his invisible bonds. Taj—Taj was still in the house!

The crackling horror was a delight to the Mundurucu, who clapped their hands and made disgusting comments about the sight as they danced in perverse celebration. Sick at heart, Oskar could only exchange a glance with Mamakitty. In her eyes he saw that she, too, had remembered.

With a splintering roar, the roof caved in, inciting a whoop of satisfaction from the hideous, cackling spectators. Their cries of delight ceased, however, as something was seen to rise from among the ashes. Oskar's lower wolf jaw fell as far as the evil enchantment that held him in place would allow, and even Kobkale was stupefied into silence.

Ascending from the center of the now completely engulfed house was a bird. It was not a canary. Nor was it a hawk, or even an eagle. It had wings of coruscating golden flame burnished with azure and shot through with crimson, a head from which projected long feathers that were tongues of orange incandescence, and eyes that burned with unnatural intelligence and perception. When it fully opened its wings, they overspread the house on either side.

"Firebird!" a terrified Kmotho cried.

His croak of warning was taken up by a dozen other inhuman throats. Unnerved, the Mundurucu looked to Kobkale for leadership. That cunning creature was, however, momentarily paralyzed by the unexpected sight before him. As he strove to consider how best to respond, the firebird that was Taj rose clear of the burning house, swept forward to perch on its still intact forepeak, opened its imposing, effulgent beak, and spat.

To Kobkale's left, the Hairy Kwodd burst into a ball of flame. Shrieking and waving flaming arms, the Mundurucu staggered madly about, finally collapsing onto the picket fence and setting it ablaze. A second Mundurucu was transformed into a flaming torch, and then another, and another. Oskar found that he could move his forelegs and tail. As more and more of the Mundurucu perished, the weaker became the immobilizing hex they had cast.

Retreating to the edge of the forest, Kobkale and his surviving kin gathered themselves for one last stand. But this time, when the most eminent among them raised his arms and began to intone a most horrific rune, even his hideous brethren shrank away from him in horror at the conjuration he was crooning.

Kobkale's desperate chanting had opened the gate into one kingdom of light the travelers had not visited—had not visited because it was as unknown as it was inaccessible, and as feared. No one would go there even if they could. It was a place not of ultimate evil but of ultimate indifference. And its denizens had no love for anything from anywhere else.

From out of the portal to the Kingdom of Black emerged bloated, lumpen shades of unadulterated gloom. They had no faces and, for that matter, no heads. Arms of flaccid blackness dragging the ground, they lurched slowly forward on legs of shadow that reflected neither color nor light.

From his flaming perch, Taj sang at them. Gouts of flame erupted in front of and around each of the figures. Like the light that fell from the sun, these individually hurled conflagrations were absorbed into the dark corpus of each interloper, sucked right up and away much as a sponge would do with water. For all the damage the exalted flame did to their intended targets, Taj might as well have been spewing birdseed.

With a wrench and a wheeze, Oskar felt himself break free of the last of the thaumaturgic restraints. Nearby, he saw that his friends had been similarly released from the pernicious enchantment. Teeth bared, he started toward the cowering knot of surviving Mundurucu—only to find his path blocked by one of the lumbering black shapes. It manifested no overt threat, carried no weapons, and raised no hands in anger. But the hackles rose on his back, and he halted. To step within the grasp of one of those tenebrous shapes, he sensed, would be to vanish forever from the realm of the living.