Kingdoms of Light

consequence the runes predicted would come to pass in the event of my possible defeat. The tint of Truth, the brilliance of Righteousness, the panoply of the spectrum itself: all will be stolen away. To throw back the Horde into the dark depths from which they have come, color must first be restored to the civilized lands. Somehow, you must find the pure light of true coloration, wherever it survives, and bring it back.''

Gray-green eyes flashing, expression solemn, Mamakitty carefully folded the letter. She started to put it into her mouth for safekeeping, then realized that her new fingers would do just as well. 'That's it, then. That's our obligation.'

'Old dead Master doesn't want much, does he?' Oskar snapped at hovering dust motes, scattering them in the light from above. 'Bring back some color, is all. As if we could catch such a thing with our bare hands and stick it in a bottle, like milk. Now, if it was a bone—'

'Regardless,' the dusky woman growled, 'it is our departed master's last wish. We have an obligation.'

'Obligation? That's a human word.' Sniffing pointedly, Cezer spun around to take a playful slap at Taj, who ducked instinctively and slapped back. 'What 'obligation' do we have to humans? None! Don't get me wrong—Evyndd was a good master, as masters go. But remember some of the other humans who came to visit! They would push us away from them, and when the Master wasn't looking, sometimes they kicked and cursed. We all know that there are other humans who do even worse than that to our kind.' Spreading his hands wide, he executed a perfect experimental back flip for the sheer joy of trying it on only two feet.

'Let this Horde keep its grayness! I myself can still see and enjoy all that I need to. So can you,' he told Cocoa and Mamakitty, 'and you,' he added with a nod upward in the direction of silently watching Samm. 'And you well enough,' he told Oskar. 'Believe me, all this business about 'color' is overrated. We can see enough of it to get along. Obligation to help humans? I don't think so!' He threw the powerfully built older woman who had read the letter a challenging glance—while keeping prudently out of reach. Though somewhat reduced, she still had claws. 'What about it, Mamakitty? How many of our remaining lives do we owe a dead master?'

'We owe him the fact that there will no longer be a master over us.' All eyes turned to Oskar. Cezer frowned and wrinkled his nose.

'But you were just saying—'

The other man cut him off. 'I was decrying the difficulty of the task Master Evyndd has set before us—not saying we shouldn't do it. Look at us.' He gestured meaningfully.

'I'd rather not, if you don't mind.' Taj gave a slight shiver. 'I miss my feathers.'

'We all need human clothing,' Mamakitty observed. 'Not only for warmth and protection, but simply so we can move about in the world of humans without drawing attention to ourselves. You've all seen how they 'dress.''

'Clothes!' Cezer shuddered, and not from the cold that afflicted Taj. 'Human things.'

'Like it or not, we are human now. Maybe we'll be human forever,' Oskar pointed out. 'It all depends on the Master's spell, about which we still know very little. The sooner we get used to the idea, the easier it will be for us. Think of it. No masters anymore.'

'Except for this Khaxan Mundurucu,' Mamakitty reminded them.

Oskar nodded, his thick gray mustache bobbing. 'Think of all the bad masters who visited here. Now imagine them multiplied a thousandfold and set over not only animals such as ourselves, but over all humans as well.'

'Masters above masters?' Cezer muttered. 'I admit that's not a very appealing notion.'

Oskar nodded somberly. 'If we do what Master Evyndd wishes, maybe we can prevent that from happening. All we have to do is bring color back to the Gowdlands.' He eyed each of them in turn. 'Myself, I wouldn't think we could do such a thing—except for the fact that Master Evyndd apparently believes that we can. We must at least try.' He looked to Taj. 'You see color better than any of us, so you know best what is missing and needs to be recovered.'

The songster nodded slowly. 'I wish I could make you all understand what the full range of color is like. Then you'd know why it's so important that it be restored to the world.'

Hopping up on a table, Cezer performed a swift pirouette, rendering himself delightfully dizzy in the process. 'If you say so. Never having taken anything too seriously, I guess I can't do so even with my own objections. But I warn you now: at the first sign of serioustrouble, i'm taking my leave. for all i care, the Gowdlands can stay forever dark and gray. I can see just fine.'

'Seeing without color is seeing without joy. I wish I could explain it to you,' Taj responded. 'There's no joy without color to dance with. Remember the day that orchestra of humans came to play for the Master on his birthday? Each instrument makes a sound like a different color.'

'I would so like to dance to all the colors and not just the ones that we can see,' Cocoa murmured dreamily.

'I can always dance in your eyes, my little mouse.' Cezer's twinkled.

'It's settled, then.' Oskar scanned the study. 'We need to prepare. First, as Mamakitty has pointed out, we need human clothes to hide our furlessness.'

A rumbling hiss of uncertainty commanded his attention. 'What about me?' wondered Samm.

'We'll put something together for you.' Mamakitty contemplated the problem of the man-snake's size with her usual confidence. 'All of us are going to have to learn how to adapt.' Her tone turned disapproving. 'For one thing, we will have to learn how to avoid distractions. Cocoa, stop wasting time at that mousehole.'

Looking abashed, the exquisite young woman rose from where she had been crouching beside a dark spot in the baseboard. 'Sorry.' She waved a hand. 'I just thought that with this longer reach I might finally get my claws on the tricky little blood pouch.'

'Weapons.' Oskar's heavy eyebrows furrowed. 'We'll need weapons as well as clothes. I've watched humans play-fight. They don't bite each other. At least, the adults don't. I wonder if that means that younger human children are more like cats and dogs.'

Cezer was trying, with little success, to lick the end of his nose. 'I'm not flattered. Human infants pee wherever they feel like it. No discipline.'

Ignoring the other man's comment, Oskar indicated a second door set in the rear wall of the study, behind the Master's desk. 'Let's have a look in the storeroom. I always liked to lie in there, especially on hot days. Now it seems I'll have to dig through it to find what we need.'

'I'll lend you a paw, Oskar.' In a single effortless bound few humans could have equaled, Cezer was off the table and standing alongside his old roughhousing playmate. No one in the room thought the prodigious leap anything remarkable. 'Maybe while we're searching for 'clothes' we can find a container that will hold color.'

'I'll settle for one that will hold water.' Muttering thoughtfully to himself as he followed in the wake of his companions, a dejected Taj resumed his examination of his new hands. 'No feathers, no wings—no flying. Maybe the Master's magic has empowered the rest of you for the better, but I feel downright clipped.'

A mass of muscle nudged him from behind. 'And I feel—liberated,' Samm told him. 'Don't complain until you've lived all your life as a virtual quadriplegic, and then somebody suddenly gifts you with useful hands and feet. For me, just walking and being able to pick things up with something besides my mouth is a miracle that never ends.' He gazed down at the songster. 'Perspective is better from up here, too.'

'Don't be so sure humanness is such a great present,' the songster snapped. 'We've only possessed it for a few minutes.' He swatted at the pinkish appendage the giant flicked in his direction. 'And keep that tongue away from me! Yuck!'

'Sorry.' Samm was apologetic. 'Old habits, you know.' He looked thoughtful. 'Just as I've always thought, though. You do taste good.'

Not that he felt there was really anything to worry about, but a wary Taj nonetheless edged a little farther away from his lowering companion, putting Mamakitty between himself and the giant.

The storeroom of Susnam Evyndd was no afterthought; no cramped closet space filled up with old books, forgotten furniture, and discarded memories. The spacious, windowless chamber was lined with deep shelves and tall cabinets stuffed with incomprehensible arcana. Cocoa shuddered as she passed uncomfortably close to something gray-green and ichorous floating within a translucent, badly scuffed glass globe. The marks, she noted uneasily, were on the inside of the glass. Even the intrepid Cezer shied away from a tapering cone of dark wood from whose interior faint, insistent scratching sounds could be heard.

Scattered among the intimidating were more familiar and less frightening shapes and objects. Having spent more time in the cool depths of the storeroom than any of them, Oskar led the way. Radically altered his