was, rubbing his wrists lightly. 'I just wanted to kill something, and you were the first liveness I settled on.'
'You will have your opportunities to kill, I promise you. That and more, if you and your new friends conclude one simple task to the Mundurucu's satisfaction. You may even keep your human bodies, which are more conducive to murder than your former animalistic forms.'
Behind Quoll, Ratha grinned contentedly. 'Very sweet that would be.' She licked lovely, but very dark, lips. 'Speaking of sweet, my throat is quite dry.'
'Transmogrification is a thirsty business.' Kobkale nodded at Kieraklav, who was eyeing the naked Ruut ardently. 'Find blood for these two, and flesh for the other. Then suitable attire.' He pursed thick lips, causing the upper one to submerge half his nose. 'Come to think of it, take them on a stroll through town, and you may find everything you need in any one suitably populated house.' Approaching Quoll, he looked up at the new man, whose countenance seemed fixed in a perpetual glare.
'I know you would like to rip out my throat and wallow in my guts, but you're going to have to be able to restrain yourself, or you'll never succeed in carrying out the relatively simple task I have in mind for you.'
'Don't worry about me. I can control my urges when I have to.' Even in the repressed gray light of the chamber, the goblin could see that the man's eyes were as much blood red as they were blue. 'When I have to.'
Kobkale was pleased. He was confident that when they sent this trio on its way, he and the rest of the Mundurucu could forget about this business of catand dog-smelling humans who venerated a dead enemy.
In fact, he would have pitied them—had he or any of the Mundurucu been capable of expressing so alien an emotion.
SIX
As was usual with examples of active hydrology, they heard the falls before they saw them. All morning, the road to Zelevin had been narrowing. Formerly negotiable slopes on their right grew more and more perpendicular, until they were striding along with a sheer wall of black basalt on their right hand and steep drop-offs immediately to their left. Moisture-loving trees and bushes, ferns, and mosses clung to the mountainside and overflowed the gorge below. Water dripped in sparkling streams from leaves with pointed tips, as if the ferns were fountains whose spigots had been left ever so slightly open. Dominating everything else was the sheer-sided plug of weathered volcanic rock known as Temmerefe's Sky-Reef, usually emerald-crowned, now reduced to a gloomy gray mass no different from the less spectacular peaks that surrounded it.
Normally, hummingbirds and sunbirds gathered in profusion to feed on the flowers that clung to the sides of the Eusebian Gorge, their shimmering metallic throat feathers glistening like enameled porcelain, while translucent flequins soared high on the rising currents of moist air and cried for carrion. Now only a few desultory cheeps and squeaks reached the travelers, so benumbed were the arboreal denizens of the gorge by the absence of color. Espying one lonely sunbird flitting moodily from vovix blossom to perapa flower, Oskar wondered how in the absence of gender-specific tints males and females could tell one another apart. Cezer wondered if the lack of color would change the taste of the high-soaring fliers' flesh. Taj gazed longingly at his distant relations, while Samm wondered…
Did Samm wonder, Oskar mused? And if so, what did the giant wonder about? He made an effort to imagine snake thoughts, failed, and returned his attention to the ground. Traveling on only half the usual number of legs, it would be easy to slip on the damp, sometimes muddy road. It was getting easier, but was a long way from being second nature. This upright human posture still found him unsteady. The urge to drop to all fours when traversing the most difficult spots had not left him. The cat folk were not troubled by the steep slope or precipitous drop. Whether on two legs or four, they remained completely at ease in high places.
'I don't see any rainbow.' For the past hour, Taj had been whistling (and whistling wonderfully) to keep their spirits up.
'It's here. We're not at the falls yet.' Mamakitty strode along smoothly, seemingly untroubled by her newly enjoined verticality. But then, Oskar reflected without jealousy, she and Cezer and Cocoa had cat senses. He was only a dog, with all the fears and worries dogs were heir to.
The travelers did not hear the roaring until they turned a sharp corner on the mountainside, and did not see the falls for another two hours, during which time the road angled sharply downward as it descended into the gray-green depths of the canyon. Then the tall trees that sprouted from the edge of the gorge gave way to smaller bushes and thickets of color-drained flowers, and the clamor that had been growing in their ears all morning suddenly doubled in intensity.
'Oh—how beautiful!' Cocoa stopped by the side of the road, which was now barely wide enough to allow a coach to pass, to admire the thundering cataract.
'Magnificent.' Taj shook droplets of water from his hair. He would have lifted his arms to embrace the spray, but clad as he was in clothing instead of feathers, the gesture seemed certain to give rise to more difficulty than pleasure. 'As is your rainbow, Mamakitty.'
'If I didn't see it, I wouldn't believe it.' Oskar gazed in fascination at the band of multihued brilliance that stretched from one side of the gorge to the other, fronting the white-foamed waterfall like a belt across the belly of a pallid stranger. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. Viewing it in passing on his previous visit in the company of Master Evyndd, he had been able to see it only through the color-limited eyes of a dog. Even so, his astonishment at the multihued revelation was as nothing compared to Samm's.
The giant threw back his broad chest and inhaled deeply, his tongue flicking out from between his parted lips. 'So
Cezer frowned. 'What does?'
The giant looked down at him and smiled. 'Color.'
Oskar continued to stare quietly. 'This rainbow may be the last remaining object of real color left in the Gowdlands.'
'But why should it be so?' Samm was clearly, and unashamedly, puzzled. 'Why should color here alone remain, in this form?'
Though she was no scholar, Mamakitty did her best to offer an explanation. 'I can't really say, except that rainbows aren't like painted walls or dyed clothing or even spotted fur. According to the Master, they exist from moment to moment. Maybe the ability to constantly renew itself through the varying action of the falls allows it to elude the effect of the Mundurucu hex.'
'I suppose that makes sense, of a sort.' Turning from the rollicking, booming torrent to face her, Cezer smiled expectantly. 'So—how do we capture some of it and carry it back with us to the forest? Or anywhere else, for that matter?'
Oskar taunted his companion. 'You once told me that, given a clear shot at it, you could catch anything in your paws.'
The younger man held up his human hands. 'In my
Mamakitty had been giving the matter some thought. 'Ever since we left the Fasna Wyzel we have been within a day's walk of pond, or stream, or town. So we don't really need these heavy water bags. We can empty them out and use them to catch and carry rainbow.'
'I'm all for that.' Samm grunted approvingly. Which was not surprising, since he was carrying nearly all the water and the bulk of their supplies by himself. The weight would have been better distributed if he had been able to crawl. Traveling upright had disadvantages as well, he mused.
'Why, what a fine idea!' Cezer gestured expansively into the gorge. 'We'll just stroll over to that vaporous band of blurry light, pluck colors from it the way Master Evyndd's visiting help used to pick grapes from his vines, and stuff them in our water bags.' His voice dropped to a huskily sardonic, but nonetheless still attractive, murmur. 'There's nothing to it. All we need to do is figure out how to catch light with our bare hands.'
'If anyone can do that, a cat can.' Pushing past him, a determined Cocoa followed Mamakitty down into the
