Kingdoms of Light

did not.

'Not so easily, as I recall.' Ratha made no move to display a blade of her own. 'We were diving hard on you when you disappeared.'

'Let's rush 'em,' Cezer whispered. 'We can overpower them before they can pull their weapons.'

'Come to think of it,' Taj added, 'where are their crossbows? I see only long knives slung from their belts.'

'We did not bring our crossbows with us.' Ruut's smile revealed the narrow, elongated canines through which he and his slightly more attractive cousin extracted the lifeblood of others. 'Please to realize that this time we have no need of such clumsy devices.'

'Ah,' murmured Cezer, 'then you won't be surprised when I run you through with this clumsy device of my own.' Whereupon he raised his sword and charged.

'Cezer, no!' Mamakitty shouted. As well try to restrain an angry shout as their fellow cat-man. Cursing, Oskar raised his own weapon as the other man rushed past him in a blur of silk and steel.

Blade upraised, Cezer brought it down in a long, sweeping curve aimed directly at Quoll's head. The object of the attack did not attempt to retreat, or use his remarkable quickness to try and evade the blow. Instead, he raised his left hand and uttered a short, sharp bark notable for its peculiar timbre. It was a most peculiar intonation.

From the exposed fangs of his smiling associates there shot forth thin threads of stiffening blood. In the manner of ordinary blood, as soon as they made contact with the open air, they began to coagulate. Like so many slender red-orange ropes, they wrapped whiplike around the onrushing Cezer.

Before his sword could be brought down to strike the edgy, staring quoll, it was tightly bound by the solidifying, constricting strands. So was the rest of the struggling swordsman, who soon found himself enveloped from head to foot.

Taking a step forward, Quoll reached out and with one hand gave the raging, muffled figure of Cezer a sharp shove. The helpless, bound swordsman promptly toppled over backward, hitting the ground hard. He lay there, his sword bound to his side, struggling furiously but futilely.

Oskar's fingers tightened on his own weapon. The fury of his wolf ancestors burned in his eyes. At least, he hoped it did. The fury of Airedale ancestors did not carry quite the same inspirational cachet. 'What have you done to him?'

'Restrained him.' Quoll turned red-orange eyes on the softly growling Oskar. 'Would you have preferred that I killed him? Easy enough to do, you know.' Like his animal self, the quoll was in constant motion, willing landlord of a metabolism set permanently on overdrive. 'I could simply have directed the gluey expectorations of my companions to seal off his nose and mouth as well as his arms and legs.'

'Why didn't you?' Cocoa's own sword dangled ready at her side.

'Because we are commanded by the Khaxan Mundurucu to bring as many of you as possible back alive. For questioning.' His jittery smirk returned full strength. 'I regret I will probably not be allowed to attend those sessions, which promise to be wonderfully entertaining. You, I think, will not enjoy them as much.'

'How did you do that?' Wiliam indicated the now taut strands of organic red-orange that bound Cezer securely.

'One has no need of swords and crossbows when one has access to magic.' Ignoring the curious gnome, Quoll kept his attention focused on Oskar. 'The Khaxan Mundurucu take no chances. In sending us here, and suspecting that at least one among you may be a transformed disciple of the demised mage Evyndd, they prepared us accordingly. Not wishing to mete out too much power even to those who serve them, they armed us with certain skills that are only reliable when we three act in concert. Does that make you feel more confident? If so, then why not have at me in the manner of your uncomfortably cocooned companion?' Long whiskers twitched in the direction of the prone, bound Cezer. 'My companions and I could use the exercise.'

Samm hefted his axe, biding his time, watching and waiting for a possible opening. 'The Mundurucu must have great confidence in you to send you after us again, since you failed so miserably in your task on the previous occasion.'

Quoll's smirk vanished, and he glared at the giant. Of them all, the ferocious former marsupial feared only the ex-serpent. A big snake like Samm would readily and easily have made a quick meal of an incautious quoll, sharp teeth and uncommon energy notwithstanding. No matter how complete, no physical transformation from animal to human could entirely erase such primeval fears.

'Your come-down will be as complete as that of your companions, constrictor. If you don't believe me, please to try it and see.' Samm did not move. Instead, he continued to stare in his customary, unblinking fashion directly into the quoll's eyes. Discomfited, their adversary was finally forced to look away. 'As for the consequences of the outcome of our previous confrontation, the Mundurucu are as forgiving as they are all-powerful.' Holding up his left hand, he exposed his four remaining fingers, the fifth having been recently and violently reduced in length by three- quarters. 'In their benevolence and mercy, this was all the punishment they meted out.'

From the back of the group, Taj piped up unexpectedly. 'I'll bet when you show up again without us, they'll slice off three-quarters of a different part of you. Want to know which part I think that will be?'

'You're next, you sniveling little flesh-strip of a grounded chorister!' Raising his lethal right hand, the quoll took a threatening step forward. As he did so, his two caped companions opened their mouths wide.

'Stop!'

Taken momentarily aback by the source of the interruption, Quoll hesitated, arm still outstretched, lips parted to declaim the incantation with which he had been gifted by the Mundurucu. His furry brows creased as he regarded the undersize inhabitant of Orange.

'What do you want? This doesn't concern you and needn't involve you. Unless,' he added after an ominous pause, 'you wish it to.'

'I just have one thing to say. Then you can get on about your business.'

When Quoll hesitated, Oskar appropriated the ensuing silence. 'Let him go. As you say, this needn't concern him, and the Mundurucu won't want him for anything.'

The rodent-faced assassin's head twitched once. 'Speak your say, then, and leave us to the business that is none of yours.'

'So I shall.' Drawing himself up as much as he could (which was not very much at all) and pulling his beard out of the way, Wiliam began to declaim with utmost solemnity. 'There once was a gimp from Doklafa, who noidled his nurse in the patla—'

Oskar and his friends gaped at their thickset guide as he rambled on. For their part, Quoll and his companions likewise stared and listened uncertainly. But as Wiliam approached the conclusion of his crude yet convoluted ditty, a most unusual thing began to happen.

Mamakitty was first to notice the metamorphosis. It began as a hint of a smile on Oskar's face. The hint taken, it quickly matured into a wide grin. Next to her, Cocoa was blushing orange-pink as the rhyming tale jogged serenely to comic fruition. Taj had already begun to snicker, and even the always stolid Samm was smiling broadly. Soon the lot of them were chuckling, then guffawing, and finally roaring with uncontrollable laughter.

Teardrops ran down Mamakitty's face as Wiliam, without pausing or losing semantic stride, segued smoothly into a second story, this one twice as funny as the first. Far more importantly, she noticed through her tears, was that despite their best efforts to resist both the content and consequences of the guide's recitation, Quoll, Ratha, and Ruut were equally overcome with bouts of ungovernable jollity. The bat-folk in particular were unable to shut out the goblinish monologue.

Between snatches of his steady stream of irresistible japery, Wiliam managed to slip a word or two of more serious significance to the belly-clutching Oskar.

'Hurry now! I will hold them as long as I can.'

'But how on—ho-ho-har!—how are you—hee-hee-ha!—doing (gasp) this?' Sides aching, laughing so hard it took him several tries, he sheathed his sword and beckoned for his companions to follow him. Chortling and crying, they proceeded to cut Cezer free from his bonds. The unavoidable trembling induced by their side-splitting laughter caused some of their sword and knife strikes to slip and slide dangerously as they hacked the red-orange strands from his sides. Intending to upbraid them for their clumsiness, Cezer instead collapsed in one gale of laughter after another.

Helping him to his feet, the travelers stumbled and tottered past their tormentors. Quoll turned and tried to follow, but by now was laughing so hard he could barely stand erect. Frantically desirous of shutting out the