'Then we're stuck.' Mamakitty was not giving up, but she was clearly discouraged.
'Not necessarily.' Cocoa was examining the wall. 'If some of us can get over, we can try and open the gate from the other side.'
'What if the gatekeepers object to your intentions?' Mamakitty asked her.
She frowned. 'What gatekeepers? I don't see or hear any gatekeepers.'
'Exactly my point. Why should they have to watch a gate as big and solid and strongly made as this one? But if there's some kind of guard post or station on the
'Why don't we just ask them?'
Everyone turned to where Taj was standing next to the gate. 'And just how do you propose we go about doing that?' Cezer inquired acerbically.
Turning slightly, Taj pressed both hands against the door behind him and pushed. From within the massive wooden gate there arose a profound creaking as it swung slightly inward. Smiling apologetically, Taj replied to his questioner.
'It's not locked.'
ELEVEN
One by one, they approached the narrow opening Taj had accidentally discovered and peered through the gate. Though only a small gap, it was enough to permit them to see clearly within. The panorama that greeted their anxious, impatient gazes was sufficient to banish any fears.
The light within the Kingdom of Yellow was almost normal. Not to the point of allowing other colors to exist, but close enough to what they remembered from home so the travelers felt more comfortable with what they were seeing than at any time since they had entered the rainbow. It was a pleasant, comforting light that imparted a warm glow to everything it touched upon—this although the sky was noticeably overcast, to the point where the visitors cast no shadows upon the yellowish ground.
There was no guard post, no barracks full of angry gatekeepers waiting to challenge those with the temerity to simply walk in. Instead, fields of waving wheatlike grass stretched to the distant horizon, interrupted only by isolated thickets of slender, buttery-yellow trees that rose from the flavescent savanna like stiff whiskers on a cat's face. There was just enough of a breeze to moderate the temperature, which itself was far from unpleasant. The air had a bracing freshness to it that had been lacking in the torpid kingdoms of Red and Orange, and was suffused with a faint perfume Oskar could not identify.
They could not see the color of the sky, hidden as it was by the yellowish gray overcast. The occasional stronger breeze whistling in their ears, they stepped cautiously through the gap and into the kingdom. Having been the one to open the door, Taj thoughtfully closed it behind him. Looking down at himself, he saw that he was once again a delightful yellow.
Stretching his arms high and wide, Cezer inhaled deeply of the pure, delicious air. 'What a wonderful place! If we weren't in such a hurry, I'd lie down right here and now and have a nap.'
'Have you forgotten that Nugwot and his followers may still be on our trail?' Cocoa reminded him. 'Not to mention Quoll and his bloodsucking pair of retainers.'
'With any luck, by now Quoll and the others should be thoroughly marigolded. As for Nugwot and his happy- sappy sycophants, even if they are uncompromising enough to continue their pursuit, I don't think they're likely to give us any trouble for a long time, if ever.' Shyly, Taj stepped aside to reveal the single large, iron bolt he had thrown. The enormous gate was now locked securely behind them.
'Good for you, featherhead!' Strolling over, Cezer clapped the smaller man hard enough across the shoulders to bruise the skin, following which substantial gesture of affection he yawned and began to inspect the ground. 'Now, who else is for that nap?'
'We can't just curl up and go to sleep in the middle of the day,' Mamakitty admonished him firmly. 'Cats do that. Not people on a mission.'
'Grouchy old sardine-head,' Cezer muttered.
Deep yellow-green eyes narrowed. 'What did you say?'
The swordsman sighed resignedly. 'That when night arrives I'll be ready to crouch on my bed. Which way?' Being human, he mused, was far from being all wonderment and delight.
Oskar considered the height of the sun and the balance of the fine day that remained to them. 'East, my friend. Always east, until we come to the place where the white light is to be found.'
'If there is such a place,' Cezer grumbled as he fell into line.
In truth, as the day wore on, Oskar found it harder and harder to keep from seconding Cezer's sleepy-time suggestion. The air, the temperature, the occasional gentle warm breeze, the soft saffron-stained herbage underfoot, combined to induce within him a growing lassitude he had not allowed himself to feel for many days. The thought of lying down and drifting off, of letting himself be lifted gently into the arms of blissful midday sleep, was something he had to fight against with every step.
Where would be the harm? he told himself. With the great gate fastened behind them, their rear was secure. No pursuit, no matter how determined or fanatical, could reach them from the Kingdom of Orange. In all the time they had been traipsing across the golden savanna, no threat had manifested itself. If not an entirely benign land, this Kingdom of Yellow was surely bound to be more obliging than the two they had already traversed.
Unable at last to stand it any longer, with the lure of a nap threatening to drag him bodily down to the inviting earth, he put the proposal before Mamakitty a second time. Perhaps the long walk, he thought, had made her more amenable. Her response surprised him.
'You're our leader, Oskar. If you think this is an appropriate time and place for a nap, then you need to say so.'
A quick glance at the rest of his companions was enough to give him the answer he sought. 'A rest will do us good. Be a refreshing change. Who knows when we'll have the opportunity again?' He indicated a nearby pond, from which sprouted lemon-tinted reeds with hollow stems that whistled lullabies in the gentle wind. 'This place is perfect. We'll set a watch,' he concluded.
That was sufficient to satisfy the always wary Mamakitty, who, truth be told, had herself gazed longingly at every potentially soft spot on the ground ever since they had left the great wall behind. With Cocoa volunteering to take the first watch, she curled up against a pile of cushiony fungi and was almost instantly asleep. She was followed by the others, with not one of them having yet bothered to wonder why so seemingly benevolent a country needed so colossal a defensive fortification.
Later, having been wakened from several hours of perfect somnolence, a much refreshed Oskar had been on watch for less than twenty minutes when he detected movement in the tawny grass. No ordinary human would have noticed the slight stirring, but like his companions in trek, Oskar possessed senses far more sensitive than those of his former masters.
He did not draw his sword. Neither did he wake his friends. The stirring bespoke no immediate threat. A wandering animal, perhaps, passing through or simply curious. They had seen precious little wildlife since leaving the Kingdom of Orange. He concentrated on the area of the movement without staring in its direction, ready to pounce or leap aside should the situation require a rapid reaction.
It did not, though some sort of calculated response was surely in order. As the sun finally began to emerge from behindthe cloud cover, a line of little people emerged from the high sedge and came toward him. Unlike their former guide Wiliam or the other inhabitants of the Kingdom of Orange, these folk were perfectly proportioned and no hairier than an ordinary human. None stood taller than the dog-man's waist. Had he been standing on all fours, they would have found themselves eye to eye. Men and women walked together, side by side. They were smartly but not lavishly attired. Each carried an unusually large fan or shield fashioned from some woven, yellowish beige plant material. As the setting sun peeked out from beneath the dissipating clouds, these were raised into place to
