even in Purple. Anyone can have a bad day. Even an elf. Even,' he added, this time looking but not glaring in Cezer's direction, 'a cat.'
'A cat who's still mighty hungry.' Having come to see the obstreperous rodent in a different light, Cezer refrained from licking his chops. It could have been considered impolite.
'Cezer's not alone.' It still took an effort for Cocoa to see the loquacious mouse as a friend and guide instead of a quick, crunchy snack. 'How do you get along here with other cats? Not to mention hawks and owls, and wolves, and buck-toothed goblins. Does everyone become a vegetarian?'
'That would be no paradise,' Samm hissed. 'Snakes can't eat fruit. It's the pits.'
'Obviously,' Smegden informed them, 'none of you has ever heard of, much less encountered, meatfruit.'
Oskar gawked at the diminutive elucidator. 'We've seen and encountered much in our travels, but don't count anything called
The mouse nodded understandingly, his minuscule black nose bobbing up and down. 'Then it's time that omission was remedied. Follow me.'
They had walked perhaps half a block, and traveled deeper into both the city and the night, when Cezer extended a paw. 'Come on, come on—up on my back. Otherwise, unless this place you're taking us to lies right around the next corner, I'll starve to death before we get there. And if you say 'giddyap' even one time, I'll bite your greasy, naked tail off at the butt.'
With a curt nod, Smegden allowed himself to be lifted up and placed on Cezer's neck. The blond ruff there was so thick the mouse had to use both tiny forefeet to part it so that he could see where they were going. Tongue lolling, a panting Oskar would have offered their guide the ride had not the impatient Cezer beat him to it.
'Turn right here.' Smegden pointed confidently. Beneath him, Cezer remained a cooperative but truculent steed. Noticing Cocoa smirking in his direction, he growled warningly.
'If you ever tell anyone in the woods when we get back to the Fasna Wyzel that I was a mount for a mouse, I'll personally take an inch off your left ear.'
She nodded gravely in response to this threat, even as her smirk grew wider still.
'If many of the animals here were people elsewhere,' Mamakitty inquired curiously of their diminutive pathfinder, 'what were you?'
Smegden shrugged very small shoulders. 'Does it matter?'
'No,' Mamakitty admitted. 'I was just curious.'
'Of course you are. How else could you be?' Without answering her question, he launched into a description of the building they were passing.
When the last lavender rays of the setting sun finally vanished, it was the turn of the nocturnal inhabitants of the city to emerge from their daybeds. Meows and whistles and hisses of delight arose from the impressed visitors as the ethereal beauty of the mystical metropolis's citizens began to manifest itself.
By their nature favoring the darkness, those denizens who now variously strolled or flew forth from their dwellings generated their own light. There were glowing faerie-folk who zipped to and fro on wings of membranous luminescence, heavyset hunched-over throgs and ogres who pulsed with the intensity of their respective gruntings. Effulgent gnomes soared high on the backs of cooperative griffins whose wing-beats flung loose sparks with every powerful downbeat, and sprites communed in clusters like bunches of prattling phosphorescent grapes. Within the omnipresent purple hue, the variety and intensity of color was startling, varying from the lightest and most delicate shade of lavender to a deep Tyrolean tint that was almost black.
The temptation on the part of Cezer, Cocoa, and Mamakitty to take energetic swipes at the vast plethora of darting, plunging shapes verged on the irresistible. They restrained their natural instincts, as one must in such a place. Indiscriminately swatting down commuting residents as if they were so many mindless fireflies would be a poor way to endear themselves to a citizenry whose help they might need.
A pageant of pixies puttered past them, all hummingbird wings and uppity attitude, one adult and a couple of dozen youngsters. One of the latter flew teasingly into Cezer's ear, causing him to emit a yowl of surprise. Before he could raise a paw to scratch at the offended organ, the adolescent flier had backed out to rejoin her troupe. The cat was not amused.
'Pay no attention,' his Lilliputian rider advised him. 'What else can you expect from a pixie?'
'I'd like to see her laugh like that after I'd torn her wings off.' Cezer reluctantly contented himself with a snarl in the direction of the rapidly retreating aerial troupe. From between his ears, Smegden leaned forward to gaze disapprovingly down into one yellow eye.
'That'll endear you to the locals.'
'How much farther?' Cocoa asked. Though she was as entranced as her companions by the nocturnal beauty of the city, the scenery had done nothing to assuage the emptiness in her belly. It did not help that their guide was looking more and more like the tip of a furry brochette with ears.
'Just ahead,' Smegden assured her, entirely innocent of her envisionings. 'Around this block.'
'What do all these enchanted folk do?' Oskar wondered. 'Being enchanted, I wouldn't think there's all that much to occupy them.'
'Oh, but there is,' their diminutive guide informed him. 'There are old spells to maintain and new ones to propound, transcendental interstices to be filled and otherworldly gates to be oiled. Interdimensional portals need regular upkeep lest shards of the discarnate flake off, and the dry cleaners hereabouts are kept busy around the clock. All that ephemera and evanescence can't be kept immaculate by charm alone, you know. Everyone here has a job.'
'Even you and your squeaky friends?' Taj asked from above.
'Especially me and my friends.' Smegden strained to see over and through Cezer's miniature mane. 'For one thing, spells alone aren't very effective against bugs. Even at their most cultivated, cockroaches are never enchanting. Tasty, though.'
Oskar wrinkled his whiskers. 'No, thanks. I'll take a bowl of nice, fresh carrion any day.'
'You won't have to.' The mouse gestured. 'There's the Commons, just ahead.'
Oskar had thought the vast forest of Fasna Wyzel the most beautiful place he had ever seen, and not just because it was his home. But the Grand Commons of the Kingdom of Purple surpassed in every way the ancient woods through which he had roamed as both pup and adult.
An implausible diversity of trees shimmered before them—not in the moonlight that was rising, but by their own internal lights. Though every tree-glow and leaf-light was a variation on the all-pervasive purple, they nonetheless managed to give the impression of being kissed here with gold, there with silver, and elsewhere with a multiplicity of shades the travelers had not seen gathered together in one place since they had left their home and fallen into the rainbow.
Within the trees played the nocturnal animals of the kingdom. No enchanted folk here; only possums and sugar gliders, bats and big-eared lemurs, a variety of snakes and frogs, and all manner of night-loving creatures.
Their guide directed them to an eccentric hardwood with three conjoined trunks. In addition to enormous flaring flowers, it bore on its branches long, thin, tubular fruit. Piles of this lay on the ground, tempting the travelers. Hopping down from Cezer's neck, Smegden implored them to restrain their hunger for one more moment.
'Don't eat that stuff. It's last week's droppings. Let me get you some fresh.' Turning and craning his neck, he called up into the tree. For so small a voice, it carried surprisingly far.
A couple of sleepy squirrels appeared. Though roused from their hollow, they grudgingly complied with Smegden's request. Apparently, the mouse was a person of local importance out of all proportion to his size. Oskar remembered how quickly a host of the rodent's comrades had hopped to his aid.
Working rapidly and efficiently, the two squirrels chewed through the stems that secured several mature fruits to the branches of three adjoining trees. These plunged to the neatly manicured grass below and bounced a couple of times before stopping. Hopping over to the nearest, Smegden took a bite out of one end and chewed reflectively, a minuscule gourmet sampling the latest product of an entirely natural kitchen.
'Not bad tonight.' He gestured at Cezer. 'Have a taste.'
The cat was reluctant. 'Rodents are like dogs; they'll eat anything.'
'Hey!' Oskar protested.
The swordsman-cat ignored him. 'It doesn't look very appetizing. It looks like a vegetable. I hate vegetables.'
