The songster lowered his eyes. 'I'm afraid I can't do that. I thought I saw a path leading behind the falls. I ran for it, and instead found myself caught up in the rainbow and dumped here. I certainly don't know how to get back.'
Cocoa looked over at Samm. 'You always said that color smelled hot. It certainly fits this place!'
In the stricken silence that ensued, Oskar was moved to point out that there was no sign of their malevolent pursuers, either.
'If Taj doesn't know the way back,' Cocoa observed with inexorable logic, 'then even if we can find and collect some white light, how are we going to return it, and ourselves, to our home?'
Mamakitty was ready for that one. 'First things first, my dear. One impossible task at a time.' Bending forward to shake sweat from her face, she straightened and scanned the horizon. 'First we must find a way out of this dreadful heat. I like lying in the sun as much as the next cat, but not the whole day long.'
'I don't know what you're all so worried about.' Eyebrowless Samm inhaled deeply. 'I think it's quite pleasant here.'
Oskar found himself envying the giant his natural tolerance for heat. 'I wonder if anything lives here besides misshapen plants and flat-backed bugs? If we could find someone to talk to, we could ask them about the presence of white light. If not here, in this land of everything red, then perhaps somewhere else.'
'Not a problem.' Cocoa was pointing with a slim, girlish hand. 'We'll just ask them.'
The cart that was coming toward them was drawn by a pair of short-legged, warty, carmine-colored creatures that looked like frogs who had been stepped on. Repeatedly. Instead of straps and buckles, they were harnessed in red-black nets that restricted their movements even more than normal tack would have done. Bulbous eyes bulged so far from the sides of their skulls that they were equally capable of looking backward as well as forward.
The wagon they were pulling rattled along on eight wheels whose individual diameter was no greater than the length of Cocoa's arm. The bed was piled high with neat bundles of firewood and a couple of barrels that, even at a distance, reeked powerfully of distilled spirits. As for the pair of drovers, they were no taller than Taj but far more stoutly built. Their wide, flattened faces looked pushed in, their teeth were broken snags, and their eyes small and beady. One wore pants, shirt, and a wide-brimmed, floppy hat of some material resembling felt. The other was clad in shorts, suspenders, and a long-sleeved shirt that defied both the heat and common sense. His bonnet boasted fore and aft rims that shielded him somewhat from the merciless sun.
Espying the cluster of travelers, their expressions reflected mutual surprise. Repressing a sudden embarrassing urge to chase the wagon and bark at its wheels, Oskar approached the slowing vehicle, his right hand upraised.
'Uh, hello there.' Flashing a wide smile at the pair of homely countenances perched on the bench seat, he extended his open palm to the driver in the manner of human greeting, even though the creature was manifestly not human. 'We're strangers in this country, just recently arrived, and we could use some help and some directions.'
The gross drovers exchanged a glance. Then the driver looked down and smiled. It did not much improve his appearance. 'Of course we'll help as much as we can, visitor. The Warrow Plains ain't no place to be wandering about. Better you come follow us.' Raising a short-handled club, he gestured over the heads of the stoical team. 'You're lucky.
Pyackill is just through those there hills. You'll find staying places there, and food, and water.'
Cezer had moved up to stand alongside Oskar. 'Listen, my good ma—well, whatever you are. What sort of reception are we likely to find in this Pyackill? Us being strangers, and all.'
The drover's smile widened. Mildly curious, Oskar tried to count the number of teeth in the impossibly wide maw, giving up when he reached forty-two.
'Why, surely it's strangers you are! Pyackill's one of the friendliest towns in the Red Kingdom. You'll be greeted regular by folks in the street, and people you've never met will reach out to help you.' Whereupon he brought the club down hard on Cezer's unprotected and unsuspecting head.
Caught completely off guard, the cat-quick swordsman went down in a heap. Oskar lunged reflexively at the drover, only to feel the fist of the other musterer intercept his face with surprising force. Cocoa was at his side in an instant, as was Mamakitty.
The rowdy brawl quickly spilled out onto the rusted earth as drovers and travelers, bound up together in a ball of flailing arms and kicking legs, tumbled off the wagon's seat. Samm was able to separate them before more than a few drops of blood had been spilled. Clothes had been dirtied, flesh scratched, feelings bruised, and in the course of the fight an embarrassed Cezer had hacked up what turned out to be a couple of old hairballs.
Brushing rust-colored dust from his pants, Oskar glared at the local who had punched him. Before he could speak, the squat drover advanced on him anew. Oskar flinched warily, prepared now to defend himself, but the creature only reached up to clap him on the shoulder.
'Welcome, friend. I'm Baldrup.' A thumb jerked in his companion's direction. It resembled a week-old sausage that had been seriously dog-worried. Though it reminded Oskar he was hungry, he resisted the urge to chomp down on it. 'That's my brother-in-law Snicklie. Nice to meet you.'
'Nice to—?' Struggling to comb dry twigs out of his long blond hair, a fuming Cezer had to be restrained from drawing his sword. 'Is this how you greet all your 'friends'?'
Snicklie chuckled, an unexpectedly childish gurgle. 'Of course not.' He indicated Samm, standing silent and alert behind him. 'But your great lumbering colleague here interrupted us before we could finish.'
Frowning, Mamakitty delicately fluffed her own black curls, regretting that her fingers were not as adept at the task as her tongue would have been. 'Are you trying to tell us that this is your way of showing friendship?'
Baldrup gazed longingly at the club Samm had gently but firmly removed from the drover's grasp. 'How else does one greet good friends?'
'And this is how everyone here acknowledges guests? Including those 'friendly' folk you spoke of who inhabit the town we're about to enter?' When both blithely smiling drovers nodded in unison, Mamakitty hastily called for her companions to gather around her. 'Would you excuse us for a moment?'
Still straightening their rumpled clothing, the disconcerted travelers stepped off to one side to caucus quietly.
'This doesn't make any sense.' Taj was both worried and bemused.
'Sure it does,' argued Cezer. 'They're crazy. This is a crazy place, so what more normal than for it to be inhabited by crazy people?' His whiskers would have been twitching nervously had he possessed any.
'They're not crazy.' Cocoa spoke softly but with the feeling that she was right. 'They just have different customs.'
'We're going to have to be very careful here. The more someone 'likes' you, the harder the hit they may expect you to absorb.' He glanced back at the two drovers, who stood waiting patiently for their new acquaintances to finish conferencing. 'I mean, a friendly nip is one thing, but that wasn't exactly a pat on the head.'
'He's right,' agreed Mamakitty. 'And we may very well be expected to hit back, lest we be accused of being standoffish. Or worse, deliberately unfriendly.'
Rubbing his elbow where he had landed when everyone had tumbled off the wagon, Cezer wore a grim expression. 'That I can do. In fact,' he added warningly, 'if we run into any more of this local 'friendliness,' they may find me the most polite individual ever to visit this town.'
Oskar whacked him on the shoulder, and the other man whirled sharply to confront him. 'Just being friendly, old friend. If we're going to get through this and find the white light we need to take back with us, we're going to have to learn how to adapt to local customs.'
'How about I adapt your nose?' Cezer growled.
Mamakitty took a firm grip on his arm. 'Not now. Let's thank these two for their offer of assistance, tell them we'll be delighted to follow them into the city, and see if they can supply information as well as guidance. And remember: be courteous.'
'With pleasure.' Allowing her to hold on to his arm, Cezer ground one fist into the open palm of his other hand. 'Just tell me when you want me to be friendly, and to whom.'
'I will,' she assured him, 'and you need to trim your claws—um, nails.'
Oskar accompanied Cocoa on the walk back to the wagon. 'It makes sense, I suppose. In a red country, what
