man's look of murderous rage, and reached out to catch the curious vendor with a solid right hook across her long face. From where she was kneeling beside Cezer, Cocoa looked startled, and even Mamakitty was taken aback.
Not Biski, though. Staggered by the blow, her huge mouth made gulping motions, like a fish out of water fighting for oxygen. 'Now that's more like it, stranger-man! For a while there I thought sou were going to play the patrician with me, like the richy folk who always have their sniffers stuck high in the air when they deign to visit the marketplace.' She rubbed spine-tipped fingers together. 'What can I sell sou?'
'As we said,' Oskar repeated. 'Some information.'
'What we need to buy, sou—you don't sell,' added Cocoa.
'Mnmph, is that so? Try me. What be your pleasure, then?'
Oskar wondered if those enormous pupils let her work her booth as effortlessly at night as in the daytime. 'We come from a land of many colors.'
'Many colors!' The elderly crone wiped dirty spines against her apron. 'Who ever heard of such a thing! But it is true that I am not well traveled, and what do I know of the greater world? Many colors, say sou? Even in such a place, though, red is still best, ses?'
'Yes, of course,' agreed Mamakitty diplomatically. 'But a hex has been placed on our kingdom that has wiped out nearly all color. To restore what has been lost, we need to return with a quantity of white light, which contains within it all colors.'
Once more the gaping beak gulped air. 'Many colors, white light—what strange places exist beyond Pyackill!' As she stood behind her counter of animated food contemplating their request, the rubbing of her wide chin by one spiny hand produced a sound like a fly trying to force its way through a metal grate. 'Light is not my specialty.' Raising her other hand, she pointed to a stall at the very end of the long building.
'See that red flag hanging there?—well, they all be red, I suppose—try Phuswick's booth. He gets around a good deal, he does. Has superior taste in victuals and always buys the best from me. If anyone in Pyackill can sell sou white light, Phuswick it be.'
'Thank you.' To add emphasis to his gratitude, Oskar tried to kick her under the counter, but it was too wide and his foot would not reach her spindly, spiny legs. Noting the gesture, she gargled merrily at him, a twinkle in one enormous eye. Reaching up with a finger, she removed the irritation and flicked it aside.
'That's all right, stranger-man. It be the thought that counts.'
EIGHT
With a name like Phuswick, Oskar expected the occupant of the booth to be fully human, perhaps plump of form and amiable of aspect. He was neither. A Very Large Bug presided over the contents of a gigantic antique shop whose inventory had been squashed and smashed and squeezed down to fit into one of the fifty or so booths that lined both sides of the market building's busy interior. The variety of goods on display in the stall was breathtaking, as was the efflux that emanated from their owner.
Delighting in the opportunity to visit the interior of a covered structure with a ceiling high enough to allow him to stand without bending, Samm stood in the middle of the mob, customers and tourists and merchants swirling around him like penguins cavorting madly about an iceberg. Taj remained at his friend's side, while Cezer and Cocoa were happy to stay in the background. That left it, as usual, to Oskar and Mamakitty to endure the majestic stink as they queried the proprietor.
'You're Phuswick?' Oskar half hoped the bug would reply in the negative.
'I am,' hummed the recipient of the inquiry. His voice was smooth as maple butter, a startling contrast to his fetor and appearance. Big red-black compound eyes regarded the new customers. Between them, a mucousy proboscis probed a plate of chopped bits of something whose identity Oskar preferred not to know. It was no revelation that this trader would be a good customer of Biski's hyperactive cuisine.
'What can I interest you fine people in today? Perhaps a—' Leaning back in his hard wooden chair, the vendor reached for a quivering object that was languishing on a middle shelf.
'No, don't touch that!' Though far from squeamish, even Mamakitty had limits to her fortitude. 'Please don't touch that.' Eyeing the proprietor, she felt a surge of guilt at all the bugs she had toyed with and crunched in the not so distant past.
'Well, all right.' Straightening in his chair thrust his body odor even more forcefully in the direction of his customers. 'What, then? Or have you come to try and sell me something?' A clawed foreleg indicated the overflowing stock. 'I am in need of nothing today. As you can see, my inventory is quite high at the moment.'
Maybe if you used some perfume, or scented lotion, you'd have more customers, Oskar thought. Actually, once you got used to it, the smell wasn't so very much stronger than wet dog. Aloud, he inquired straightforwardly, 'Biski sent us. She said that if anyone in Pyackill had what we needed, you would be the one to see.'
'Ah, Biski!' the vendor buzzed. 'Lovely Biski. Almost arthropoid, I like to think of her. Breeder of the best stubbleblips in the kingdom, too.' Focusing on Oskar, much to the latter's olfactory discomfort, the merchant hummed, 'What is it you need?'
'White light,' declared Mamakitty flatly, sacrificing her momentary anonymity to spare Oskar the full brunt of the vendor's stench. 'We need to acquire a large quantity of white light.'
'And something to carry it in,' added Cocoa from behind.
Having nothing to frown with, Phuswick had to settle for emitting a series of uncertain buzzes, as if he were aloft and abruptly losing wing power. 'White light? You want to buy white light?'
'You don't know what it is.' Cezer sighed in disappointment.
Looking past Oskar, the vendor replied sharply. 'Of course I know what it is! Do you think me ignorant, one- lens? White light,' he muttered, 'is the light of all lights.'
'Yes, that's it!' Pushing forward, an excited Cocoa tried to descry which of the dozens, of the hundreds of jars and alembics, pots and bottles, might contain the vital ephemera they had come to find. 'Where is it?'
'Not here,' the vendor snapped. 'I'm a shopkeeper; not a theurgist. You won't find something as evanescent as white light for sale in a stolid, workaday place like Pyackill. If you really mean to have it, the acquiring will require more from you than money. It demands courage and skill, boldness and stealth.'
'Then you know someone who does have it for sale?' asked Mamakitty as she slapped away the filching fingers of a would-be pickpocket. The tousle-haired boinkle grinned up at her as he hopped beyond her reach.
'Nice to meet you, too, stinky lady!' He smirked.
'I know of someone who
'Then all we have to do is ask?' inquired Oskar eagerly.
'In a manner of speaking. You need to talk to those who guard our border with lands of other light. You need to talk to the Red Dragoons.'
Oskar nodded to indicate his understanding. 'Doesn't sound too difficult. Where do we find these red dragons?'
'Not dragons—dragoons. On the border with the Kingdom of Orange, due east from here,' Phuswick explained. 'Be on your best behavior. You know how soldiers can be.'
' 'All we have to do is ask.'' Cezer made a disgusted noise. 'The Master once had a group of soldiers stay several days with him, discussing how knowledge sorceral related to matters military. I didn't like them. They wouldn't let me sleep in their laps, or scratch on their boots.'
'This lot probably won't either,' Oskar pointed out dryly. 'Better get used to the idea now.'
Cezer nodded tersely. 'Don't worry. This shape doesn't seem suited to such pleasurable activities.' He grinned at Cocoa. 'Bet they'd let
She made a face. 'I'd rather scratch boots.'
'We'll do it.' Mamakitty's tone was firm if not entirely assured. 'We'll question these soldiers, find the white light, and take it back with us.'
'But not today, for I'll wager this outpost doesn't lie close to the city limits.'
