Kingdoms of Light Read online

  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 standing, on his two hind legs. His eyes looked down at the world from a height considerably greater than before. Stunned quite beyond anything in his open, good-natured experience, he let out a howl of surprise.

  "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 my fur?"

  "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.

  "That's not all I can grab." Taking a step toward the work-table, Cezer raised both human hands.

  A familiar warning hiss emerged from the throat of the transformed Cocoa. "Keep away from me, you lecherous freak! I'm in no mood to play."

  "This isn't about play." Striding with her usual innate majesty into the kitchen, Mamakitty cuffed the ebullient Cezer sharply on the side of his head. Though he was bigger than she, and stronger despite her size and condition, he did not hit back. He had too much respect for her. They all did, Oskar included.

  When a very different kind of hiss sounded from the far corner of the kitchen, they realized with uneasy certainty that whatever unknown incantation had transfigured them had not yet finished with its transforming work.

  The naked man who rose slowly and unsteadily but with increasing assurance from a low crouch was massively built, and far taller than anyone else in the room. His face was as chiseled as the rest of his body, and unlike the rest
of them, he was absolutely hairless, even to the eyebrows. The newly rendered humans did not identify him immediately. This was not surprising, since in their previous embodiments they had had very little contact with him even though he had lived always in their midst.

  Realization struck Oskar first. After all, only one denizen of the wizard Evyndd's menagerie had been both hairless and fashioned of solid muscle.

  "Great offal—it's Samm!"

  "I never would have guessed." The beguiling Cocoa was eyeing the naked mass of muscle admiringly, much to the well-formed but far smaller Cezer's evident irritation.

  Not knowing what else to do, and wishing from the very beginning to preserve harmony in their altered states among all, Oskar approached the man-serpent. Imitating a gesture he had observed the Master exchanging with his guests, he tentatively extended an open hand.

  "Samm the snake. How strange that after all these years we should only now truly be able to communicate."

  Bending low to avoid banging his bald head on the ceiling, the giant's expression reflected serious confusion. Oskar immediately found himself sympathizing.

  "It's all right. I think all of us who have been transformed by the Master's magic are capable of speech. Try it."

  "Wasn't worried about speaking," the giant grumbled. "Just not sure yet how to use these." He held out both huge hands, gazing at them as if he had suddenly sprouted cactus spines instead of fingers. Which he might as well have, Oskar reflected. To a formerly limbless creature arms and legs, hands and feet, would be more of a novelty than even human speech.

  Reaching out, he took one of Samm's hands in his own and squeezed gently. Emulating the gesture, the giant squeezed gently back, his grip completely enveloping Oskar's. The dog-man winced at the pressure but held on long enough to shake the other's hand. He was relieved to have his own back in one piece.

  "What has happened to us? What is this?" Like the serpent he had been, Samm was a creature of few words.

  "The work of the Master. It has to be." Mamakitty strode farther into the room, scanning shelves and starting to poke into cabinets. "There must be reason behind all of this, or it would not have happened."

  "Where is the old tomcat, anyway?" Leaning back against the worktable, Cezer struggled to scratch under his chin with his rear leg. While he could manage the feat, he found it much easier to use one of his new hands. "If he's making magic, he should be here."

  "He is here." Oskar eyed the younger man somberly. "I know—I smelled him. Inhaled some of him, actually."

  Cezer frowned and stood away from the table. "What are you talking about? That dust—?" Oskar nodded slowly. "But that would mean—?"

  "The Master is dead." Clawing open a bottom drawer, Mamakitty found it contained only onions. "He would not have caused this to happen to us without a reason. Somewhere in the house there must be an explanation for what has happened to us. When we find it, we will know what to do next."

  Placing a firm hand on the back of Cocoa's neck, Cezer smiled invitingly. "I know what I'd like to do next. This shape offers all sorts of interesting new possibilities."

  Whirling, she slapped his hand away. "For once in your lives be serious, Cezer! This thing that has happened is a bigger thing than any of us!" Under her breath she added, "Master Evyndd should have had you fixed last year, when he was thinking about it."

  "I heard that!" Cezer replied accusingly.

  "Both of you!" Mamakitty growled commandingly, "stop fighting and start looking."

  "Looking for what?" Spreading his hands in an unconsciously perfect human gesture, Cezer eyed her questioningly. "Even if we found something, how would we know what we were looking at? Cats can't read."

  "I have this inescapable feeling that we can now, just as we can speak." The older woman tossed a sealed jar in his direction.

  Catching it effortlessly in one hand, Cezer glanced at the handwritten label. "Sweet pickles. I hate pickles." His eyes widened as he realized what he had just done. "Fssst, you're right! We can read!" He examined the warm, familiar kitchen anew. To the usual sights and smells, little had been removed while much had been added. "I wonder what else we can do?"

  "Besides babble inanely?" Cocoa was helping Mamakitty with her search. "Why don't you help us and find out? There must be something the Master left behind that will tell us what to do next." In a cheerful daze, the long-haired young man proceeded to join in the search for they knew not what.

  Leaving Samm to cope by himself for the moment with the complicated and somewhat daunting business of learning how to use hands and feet, Oskar started to join the others, only to be stopped by a plaintive voice from overhead.

  "Hey—what about me?"

  Despite the human words, there was no mistaking the golden, mellifluous tone. Glancing up, Oskar saw a very slim, very pale blond young man clinging rather desperately to the highest rafters of the kitchen.

  "Hello, Taj, and welcome to the world of human form. Come down and be with the rest of us."

  "Come down—how?" Extending a slender arm, the former songbird fluttered fingers with extreme rapidity and to absolutely no effect. "My wings are gone! In their place I have these—these finger things. Good for picking up seed but useless, I fear, for flying."

  "It's only a short drop. Just let go and land on your feet."

  "Easy for a dog to say," the former canary grumbled. "If I come down, you promise to keep the cats from attacking me?"

  Oskar shook his head resignedly. That gesture, at least, felt wholly familiar. "As you can see, everything's different now, Taj. You're as big as any of the cats-that-were." This human speech, he reflected, was much more efficient for purposes of communication than barking. The only response barking at Taj, for example, had ever provoked was a squirt of something from the high-hanging cage that was not especially eloquent.

  "Yes, but not as strong, I fear."

  "Well, you can't stay up there." Mindful of Mamakitty's directions, the dog-man bent and began rummaging through the lower kitchen cabinets.

  Taj waited another couple of minutes before hanging momentarily from his hands and then dropping to the floor. He landed without difficulty on his bare feet. "Say, that wasn't so bad."

  "I didn't think it would he. Master Evyndd caused us to be changed, not helpless." Oskar looked back from where he was searching. "Now, help the rest of us look."

  "What are we looking for?" Taj ambled close to peer over the other man's broad shoulder.

  "Something to tell us what we're supposed to do next."

  "What makes you think we're supposed to do anything next?"

  "Because…" Oskar hesitated. It was not an unreasonable question, and it took him a moment to come up with an answer. "Because Master Evyndd wouldn't have caused this to happen to us without there being an important reason behind it. I don't recall him ever doing anything without a reason."

  "Then maybe we're looking in the wrong place." For a mere bird, Oskar felt, Taj had often demonstrated exceptional intelligence. "Shouldn't we be searching the study?"

  The study. Oskar tried to twitch his tail at the thought of it. The absence of a tail was disconcerting. Still, he mused, there were other appendages he would have missed more. Be grateful for what you have, he told himself. While Evyndd's pets had been allowed in that sanctum sanctorum, it was only when the Master was present. Woe unto any animal who was caught there without permission! Mamakitty relieved him of the need to contrive a response.

  "Taj is right. The study is where Master Evyndd kept all of his most important things. We should look there." Turning, she gestured with a hand as fluidly as if she had been doing so all her life. "Everyone follow me."

  Oskar was more than willing to let the senior cat go first. As they stood confronting the open portal, ingrained training warning them to stay back, he observed that Cezer was standing very close to the equally tall but much less muscular Taj.

  The former songster finally noticed the other man's intense, unwavering stare. "Is
there something on your mind, cat-man?"

  "Yesst. I have this overpowering urge to rip your throat out and gnaw on your brains."

  "Repress it." Oskar felt no compunction at intervening. "If we're going to survive what's happened to us, we're going to have to rely on each other's help."

  "Besides," declared Taj boldly, "I'm big enough now to fight back."

  Eyeing the other male, Cezer let out a disdainful snort. "Maybe."

  A heavy hand fell on his shoulder. Looking up and back, Cezer's eyes widened to take in all of Samm, who had come up quietly behind him. Even in his new, massive man-form, the former snake moved with uncanny silence.

  "Leave him alone," the giant hissed threateningly. "Remember—if given a chance, I would also kill and eat cats."

  "All right, take it easy, musclehead!" Shrugging off the oversize hand, the irritated Cezer stepped aside.

  "Quiet, all of you!" Cocoa's attention was focused on the interior of the sacrosanct chamber. Crowding close together in the doorway, they stared in silence as Mamakitty tentatively but with increasing assurance moved into the study.

  The manifold shelves that lined the chamber were crammed to overflowing with books and beakers, fragments of unknown creatures dried and jars of organic matter preserved. In the center stood a table of polished dark walnut. Boxes of strange powders jostled for space with bound bundles of desiccated plants and twigs. High overhead, a single stained-glass dome of singular design allowed wan sunlight to penetrate. It was as gray as everywhere else, and the magnificent stained-glass segments were likewise utterly devoid of color.

  Finally, Mamakitty rested both hands on the back of the high, thickly upholstered chair. "I think it's safe. It looks safe. It smells safe. Everyone, come and help search."

  They filed into the room, still uneasy at the thought of rummaging through the Master's belongings. Only Taj seemed at ease. But then, Oskar remembered, the Master had often taken the canary into his study to entertain him with song. For that reason, Taj was probably more familiar with the study and its contents than any of them. As they hunted and the floor did not fall away beneath them, their confidence grew. But loose papers yielded no immediately useful information, and none of the hundreds of books and scrolls glowed with revelation.