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broken with such audible force, he concluded, surely that individual would
have uttered a scream before fainting? And if not bones, then what could make
a noise like that?
Another snap and crack inspired him to wrench his head as far around to the
left as he could manage within the limiting confines of his rapidly
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contracting prison. What he saw gave him hope, even though time was running
short for all of them.
A massive strangler had sprung up around the largest member of their party.
But as it contracted around him, instead of fighting the pressure, Samm had
let his torso relax. Demonstrating a flexibility that would have awed a circus
acrobat, the giant's unfettered arms and legs had wrapped themselves around
the trunk of the fig. Now it was their turn to tighten, as the giant fought
his assailant at its own game. What an awestruck Oskar found himself
witnessing was a battle between two of the world's most relentless
constrictors: one from the kingdom of animals, the other from that of plants.
Both killed by contracting, by exerting relentless, unforgiving pressure on
their prey, be it motile or fixed in place.
The sharp cracks Oskar had heard had come from the sound of wood snapping.
All those magical abilities the prescient Master Evyndd had bequeathed to his
companions sprang ultimately from natural talents they had already possessed
in their previous states: Taj's singing to call the squadron of woodpeckers,
the cats' ability to blend in with and fight shadows, Oskar's special
hereditary bond with trees. Now it was the turn of, not Samm the giant, but
Samm the great constrictor, to squeeze back. As his increasingly put-upon
companions cheered him on, the giant broke first one limb, and then another,
and another, until chunks of shattered wood lay piled at his feet. At last
unencumbered, he repeated these mighty efforts to free his friends, breaking
apart one at a time the tentacles of the strangler figs that imprisoned them.
It had been a near thing. Mamakitty was in the last stages of asphyxiation by
the time Samm managed to reach her, and Taj unconscious. Steady massage
applied by a throatily purring Cocoa (massage being another specialty of cats,
Oskar knew) helped to revive the songster, leading Cezer to lament aloud the
fact that he had not been permitted to pass out himself.
"The axe would have been faster," Samm apologized when the last of them had
been freed from the wooden embrace, "but dangerous." He gestured to where the
imposing instrument lay resting on the sand. "It's not good for close-in
work." Envisioning that massive stone blade chopping away next to his formerly
captive flesh, Oskar could only agree.
"Everyone's okay, then?" As she spoke, Mamakitty was rubbing her upper arms
where the embrace of the strangler fig had been particularly unforgiving. When
the last of her comrades assented or otherwise indicated in the affirmative,
she nodded tersely. "All right, then. Enough of the Kingdom of Green. It's
time to build a boat! And remember as we work that we have only this last
territory to cross to reach the Kingdom of Purple, wherein hopefully lies the
white light that contains all colors, which we shall restore to the
Gowdlands!"
A few weakened cheers greeted her attempt to inspire them. It was not that her
words were lacking in vigor or animation: just that her companions were still
too sore from the bruising effects of the strangler figs to respond with more
than desultory expansions of sorely afflicted rib cages and lungs.
It was Cezer who was first back into the forest, and therefore first to cry
out with dismay.
"There was a big fallen log here." He did not have to identify the exact spot
where the bole he spoke of had lain. A long, wide depression marred the earth.
"Now it's gone!"
"We can see that." Mamakitty was more puzzled than concerned. "It's all right,
Cezer. We'll find another."
But they didn't. And though they braved a resurgence of flung thorns and
whipping vines to probe ever farther back the way they had come, and even did
some scouting off to the sides of their previous path, they found nothing
suitable for the building of a dugout canoe, or even a raft. Every single
fallen log had been removed, or concealed, by the forest. Unable to stop them,
it had apparently chosen to deny them even the use of its dead.
"What now?" Taj would have sat down on a log had they been able to find one.
In its absence they had to make do with sitting on the beach. "Do we make use
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of living trees in the absence of dead ones?" He eyed Samm's axe suggestively.
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