foot, ignoring it when it hissed at him softly. No one had time to comfort or caress him. People were suffering, and he had no time for animals.
'I'm not sure, Hyboos. The scholar Popelkas gave no detailed instructions. 'Scatter the ashes in the house' was all I was told.' Glancing at the sergeant, seeing the anxious, expectant faces of the rest of the troop, the good captain shrugged, picked up the bowl, removed the cut crystal lid, pursed his lips, and blew.
A cloud of gray ash erupted from the interior of the gleaming bowl to swirl and dissipate throughout the gray-toned kitchen. It was very fine ash, the cremators having done their task efficiently (as well they ought, having lately had all too many opportunities to practice their craft). It seemed to hang briefly in the still air of the high- ceilinged room, scattered only by the vigor of the captain's forceful exhalation. Then it began to sift down, until drifting particles of dead sorcerer could no longer be distinguished from the omnipresent accumulated dust of household inattention.
Slale waited hopefully, as did his troops, gazing anxiously at their surroundings. The lusterless sun continued to pour through the tall kitchen windows. The scruffy dog continued to crunch single-mindedly at his refilled food bowl. Cats moved silently, or claimed for their temporary territory muted patches of gray daylight. A single querulous meow ruffled the stillness. In its cage the canary chirped once from its perch and was still.
Among the silent, assembled troops, someone finally made a rude noise. The ensuing sniggers reflected only a moderate degree of discouragement. No one had really expected anything to happen.
'Let's get out of here.' Frustrated and disappointed, Slale turned and directed the soldiers to pick up the valuable box and bowl. These he consigned to the care of those unlucky ones who had escorted it all the way from Malostranka. Grateful to be at last on their way, the soldiers thus charged offered no fresh objection to this duty. Who knew what might happen between house and fortress? One or two of the gemstones set in the sides of the box might inadvertently manage to work their way free of their restraining bezels.
Peaceful though it was in the dwelling's vicinity, none of the soldiers desired to linger. In more cheerful times they might have felt differently. Trapped as they were in the gloom of the hex, with the threat of final conquest by the Horde looming over all of them, they wished only to return to Malostranka to participate in the defense of the fortress. There was no time to lie by the side of the singing stream, luxuriating in its enforced drabness, on grass drained as gray and lifeless as the ashes they had just scattered inside the house.
The clog saw them off, his whiskery terrier countenance giving him the aspect of a sorrowful beggar afflicted with a mustache too big for his face. For a moment, Slale thought the animal might follow. Another time, he might have encouraged the friendly mongrel to do so. Not now. At Malostranka there was food enough only for those able to fight. A last look back, when the residence was nearly out of sight, showed that the dog had gone back inside. He hoped they had left it food enough until some friend or relative of the dead wizard thought to pay a visit to the house. Twisting in his saddle, he turned his gaze and his thoughts firmly to the path ahead. They were done with this honorable but frivolous mission, and he was anxious to be out of these endless woods and back to the fortress.
The house of Susnam Evyndd fell behind, until it was lost to sight among the trees. Despondent birds flitted between the massive boles, too dejected by their dismal surroundings to sing. Forest animals crept listlessly from den to food. In the slow eddies of the river, even the fish swam with manifest despair, barely able to muster enough enthusiasm to chase tadpoles or water bugs. A pair of dun-colored unicorns cropped absently at a purpleberry bush, their actions motivated more by instinct than actual hunger. Melancholy suffused the wood like fog and dripped from the eyes of its manifold denizens like tears.
But within the gabled house of one dead wizard, something was stirring.
It caught the attention of Oskar the dog, who had recently bid an uncomprehending farewell to the strange humans who had paid an all too fleeting visit to the humanless home. Closely resembling an ambulatory mass of dirty steel wool, the inquisitive mutt found himself sniffing curiously at a corner of the kitchen where a small pile of dust had accumulated. To his slightly addled canine mind, it smelled oh so very faintly of the intimately familiar. Atop the kitchen work-table, a slightly built calico cat caught in the process of cleaning its paws paused to watch.
The perplexed Oskar sniffed again, more deeply this time. What his doggy mind decided could not be known, but his reaction was easily deciphered. Some of the dust went up his nose, whereupon he let out an impressive and reverberant sneeze that echoed throughout the otherwise silent house.
At which point he unexpectedly found himself gazing at the world from a significantly different vantage point.
He still stood on all fours, but very different fours they were. He was more naked than even when his master had taken to shaving him in anticipation of the hottest months of the summer. Gray-tinged bare flesh met his startled gaze. Sitting back, he found his head and upper body rising of their own accord, until he was standing, yes
'By the mother of all litters that ever peed in their sleeping box, I never—!'
He broke off the howl halfway, eyes wide, one paw snapping back to cover his shocked mouth. Except it wasn't a paw. It was a hand. A hand not unlike that of his master Evyndd, only younger and smoother of skin. And his muzzle, the very same muzzle he used to locate deliciously dead animals and putrefying old bones—his muzzle had been squashed flat. It, too, was naked like most of the rest of him, except for the thick, drooping mustache that grew beneath his nose. His nose…
His nose was warm and dry when it ought to be cold and wet. Even so, he did not feel sick.
Slowly, fearful of falling over, he turned to examine his surroundings. They, at least, had not changed. There were the familiar cleaning basins and the spigot from which cool, fresh water flowed at the touch of a lever. There the shelves, with their dishes and utensils. There the main food preparation table, atop which the cat Cocoa liked to sprawl and clean herself. She was sitting there as he stared now, licking herself between the toes of her right forepaw, her tongue carefully moving up and down in brisk, efficient cleaning movements. She glanced up at him out of bright, alert eyes that were forest green when everything wasn't gray.
'Meowrrr—are you ugly! You look—'
Breaking off abruptly at the sound of her own voice, she looked down at herself. In place of the mottled, multicolored cat, a very beautiful and wholly human young woman sat cross-legged atop the worktable. Like Oskar, she was mostly hairless and entirely naked.
'I look what?' Adopting a slightly twisted grin, he put his forepaws (no; his hands, he corrected himself) on his hips and regarded his formerly feline companion expectantly. His joints bent in all the wrong directions.
Stunned, she slid awkwardly off the worktable to land perfectly on all fours. Hesitantly she stood up, imitating his posture, and slowly began to examine herself. She was manifestly not pleased with her initial discoveries.
'Where,' she declared in outraged bewilderment, 'is
'Gone the way of much that is cat,' declared a strong, somber, and surprisingly deep voice.
'Does this mean that from now on we exchange kisses instead of hisses?' added a second.
As one, Oskar and Cocoa looked in the direction of the doorway that led to the inner rooms of the house. Two more humans were standing there, also naked. Oskar sniffed. His nostrils seemed not to be working quite right, as if a cloth had been laid over his face. But he could still recognize a familiar body odor when he encountered one, even from across the room. Though entirely human, he knew both of those who had spoken.
The strong, deep voice belonged to Mamakitty. Though senior among the wizard's cats, she was deceptively sleek of flank. From frequent friendly tussles, Oskar knew she was fashioned of the cat equivalent of corded steel. Standing there in the doorway, black as always and with the same white patches ornamenting her muzzle, feet, and hands, her nude form reflected both her maturity and her remarkable physical condition.
Next to her, experimenting with his human arms and hands by taking great silly swings at the empty air, was Cezer. His hair was as proportionately long and blond as it had been when he had walked on four paws, though now it was by and large restricted to the top of his head. Delighting in the utterly unexpected transformation, he began leaping about, letting out occasional shouts of delight as he reveled in his bipedal vantage point and prehensile fingers.
'Look!' he shouted gleefully as he picked up first a soup ladle, then a mixing bowl, 'I can hold things! No more just pushing them around—I can pick them up! And throw them!' Demonstrating, he heaved the ladle in Oskar's direction. The dog-man ducked, leaving the ladle to bang noisily off the back wall of the kitchen.
