Into the Thinking Kingdoms

by Alan Dean Foster

  “These groats!” he yelled at Knucker, who was having a hard time keeping up with the pace. “What would they do if they killed us? Eat us?”

  “Oh no,” the wheezing little man assured him. “They’d just make sure we were dead and then go away. They only want their forest back. As I said, they don’t like visitors.”

  “Can’t they tell that we’re trying to leave as fast as we can?” Raising a hand over his head, the swordsman warded off a cluster of small cones. Despite their moderate size, they still stung when hurled from a considerable height.

  “They probably can’t.” Knucker was gasping for air now. It was clear to Ehomba that their new companion would not be able to keep up for much longer. Something had to be done. But what? How did one fight an opponent beyond reach and impossible to see except for its eyes?

  Simna thought he had the solution. “Do something, Etjole! Blast them out of the treetops, turn them into newts, call up a spell that will bring them crashing down from the branches like stones!”

  “How many times do I have to tell you, Simna—I am not a sorcerer! I can make some use only of what wiser ones have given to me.” Looking up, he dodged to the right just in time to avoid a pinecone as big as a beer tankard, and almost as heavy.

  “Hoy, then use the sky-metal sword! Call up the wind from between the stars and blow them clear out of the woods!”

  “I do not think that would be wise. The wind that rushes between the stars is not a thing to be trifled with. You do not bring it down to earth every time you have a problem.” While running, he waved at the imposing, surrounding trees. “I could try to bring down the wind, but once summoned it cannot be easily controlled. It could bring down every tree in this forest along with the groats. Better to endure a pounding by seed pods than by falling trees.”

  “In your pack.” Simna was tired of running. He wanted to stand and fight, but doubted their assailants would oblige him. Even if they did, it would be hard to do battle with three-foot-long invisibilities. “There’s always something in that pack of yours! A magic amulet, or a powder to make smoke to hide us, or another figurine like the one that summoned Fhastal the younger.”

  “Fhastal’s sword would be of no more use to us here than our own.” The herdsman looked for a place to halt that offered some concealment from the arboreal barrage. “And I have no magic pills or conjurer’s tricks. But I do have an idea.”

  “Glewen knows I’d rather have an amulet,” Simna yelled back, “but at this point I’ll settle for an idea. If it’s a righteous one.”

  There were no caves in which to hide, no buildings in which to take refuge, but they did find a lightning-scarred tree whose base had been blasted into a V-shaped hollow. In this they all took refuge from the steady rain of spiky projectiles. Glittering eyes gathered in the branches overhead as the peripatetic yet silent groats continued to pelt this temporary sanctuary with cones.

  Slipping his pack off his back, Ehomba dug through its depths until he found what he was looking for. Simna crowded uncomfortably close. The tree hollow was barely large enough to accommodate the three men. With the addition of the litah’s substantial bulk it was difficult to breathe, much less move about.

  Removing his searching hand, the herdsman displayed a slim, irregularly shaped, palm-sized slab that was dull gray metal on one side and highly polished glass on the other. The reflective surface was badly scratched and the metal pitted and dented. It looked like a broken piece of mirror.

  “What is it?” The swordsman was openly dubious. “It looks like a mirror.”

  Ehomba nodded. “A piece of an old mirror. An heirloom from Likulu’s family.”

  “That’s all?” Simna stared uncomprehendingly at his tall companion. “Just a mirror? What would you be carrying a mirror around for? I haven’t noticed that you’ve been paying special attention to your appearance.” Expectation crept into his voice. “It’s more than a mirror, isn’t it? It has some kind of unique properties to help you vanquish your enemies?”

  “No,” Ehomba replied flatly, “it is only a mirror. A device for letting people see themselves as they are.”

  “Then what good is it?” A large cone slammed into the ground close enough to the swordsman’s right foot to cause him to try to jerk it farther back into the hollow. But there was no more room. And the groats, seeing that their quarry was trapped, were growing bolder, descending to lower and lower branches the better to improve their aim. Twinkling compound eyes of bright blue and green began to cluster together. Above and below them, plucked pinecones appeared to float in midair.

  “The sun is still high, and very bright.” Holding the mirror firmly in one hand, Ehomba prepared to step out from beneath the protection of the tree hollow. “Their eyes are large. If I can bounce the sunlight into them and blind one or two, the others might panic and run.” He glanced briefly over at his friend. “This is what I carry it for—to reflect the sun. In my country if one encounters trouble it is the best way to signal for help across long distances.”

  “I’d rather have bows and arrows.” Leaning ever so slightly forward, Simna tried to locate the nearest of their tree-loving tormentors. “But if you think it’s worth a try . . .”

  The herdsman did not wait for Simna’s opinion. Stepping out into the open, he located two pairs of drifting eyes and angled the piece of mirror so that it would shine directly in their faces. Sunlight shafting down between the trees struck the glass and bounced upward, dancing around the groats’ heads. It was a difficult and tricky business. The active groats rarely stayed in one place long enough to catch the full glare from the mirror.

  What happened next was unexpected. Knucker looked on in fascination, but Simna was not surprised. He had come to expect the unexpected in the herdsman’s company.

  Catching sight in the mirror not of the reflected sunshine but of themselves, first one, then two, then a dozen of the invisible cone throwers came sliding and climbing down from the branches to gather as if mesmerized around the mirror. Soon the entire troop was clustered before Ehomba, gazing enthralled into the scuffed, reflective glass. It was an unnerving sight: two dozen or more sets of compound eyes adrift above the forest floor. Up close, the travelers saw that the groats’ invisible fur did not render them perfectly transparent. Where one of them moved slowly, there was a shimmering in the air that reminded Ehomba of waves of heat rising from the desert floor.

  Behind him, Simna was drawing his sword. His tone reflected his homicidal expression. Squeezing out of the hollow in the tree, the black litah was right beside him.

  “That’s it, bruther. Keep them hypnotized just a moment longer, until I can get in among them.” He swung his weapon experimentally. “All I’ve got to do is aim for the eyes. Packed together like you have them, I’m bound to get a couple with each blow.”

  “No,” Ehomba warned him. “Keep back. For another minute or two, anyway. They are not hypnotized. It is—something else.”

  The swordsman hesitated. Ahlitah halted also, growling uncertainly deep in his throat. “I don’t follow you, bruther. We may not get another chance like this.”

  He was about to add something more when the groat nearest the mirror suddenly let out a startled, high-pitched squeal, the first sound they had heard one of their invisible assailants utter. Leaping straight up into the air, it promptly turned and fled. Crowding close to fill the space vacated by their rapidly retreating cousin, two more pairs of eyes abruptly sprang backwards. Unseen lips emitted panicked screeches as the entire band scrambled to flee.

  It was all over in a matter of moments. One second the groats were there, clustering around the palm-sized fragment of mirror, and the next they were gone, fleeing eyeballs escaping in all directions into the safety of the deep woods.

  Grateful if bewildered, Simna slowly sheathed his sword. A hesitant Knucker finally emerged from the protection of the scarred tree. Finding a suitable patch of sunlight, Ahlitah began to preen himself.

  “By Goroka�
��s coffee, what happened?” He looked to his friend. “You didn’t blind them all. I don’t think you blinded any of them.”

  “I do not think so either.” A greatly relieved Ehomba turned to face his baffled friends. “The only thing I can think of is that they saw themselves in the mirror—for the first time. Since they are invisible to us, and to the litah, they must always have been invisible to themselves.” Slowly, he held up the reflective shard. “A good mirror shows everything as it is. It must have shown them what they looked like under their invisible fur.”

  Stupefaction gave way to laughter as Simna roared with amusement. “And by Guquot’s baggage, they must not have liked what they saw!” Wiping tears from his eyes, the swordsman sauntered over to rejoin his tall friend. “I guess not all mirrors are glazed equal.” He reached for the fragment. “Here, let me have a look.”

  To the swordsman’s surprise, Ehomba pulled the mirror out of his reach. “Are you sure, friend Simna?”

  The shorter man frowned impatiently. “Sure? Sure about what?”

  “That you really want to see yourself as you are.” The herdsman’s tone was as earnest as ever. But then, Simna reflected, it was usually so. Reaching out quickly, he snatched the scrap of polished glass from his companion’s fingers.

  “A mirror’s just a mirror,” he muttered. “Besides, I already know what I look like.”

  “Then why do you want to look again?” Ehomba asked quietly. But the swordsman seemed not to hear him.

  Grinning confidently, Simna turned the mirror in his palm and held it up to his face at arm’s length, striking a mockingly noble pose as he did so. It was clear he intended to make light of the enterprise. What resulted was coldly mirthless.

  As he stared, the sardonic grin gradually faded from his face. Its place was taken by a sense of solemnity his companions had never before associated with the high-spirited, lighthearted swordsman. It aged him visibly, drawing down the corners of his eyes and setting his mouth into a narrow, tight line devoid of animation or amusement. He seemed to be looking not into the mirror, nor even at his own reflection, but at something much deeper and of far greater import.

  What that was none of them knew. Before they could ask, or steal a look at the image in the mirror, Simna lowered it to his side. He had entered a state of deep contemplation that was as shadowed as it was unexpected.

  “Simna?” Inclining his head a little closer to his friend, Ehomba tried to peer into the smaller man’s downcast eyes. “Simna my friend, are you all right?”

  “What?” With an effort, the gravely preoccupied swordsman pulled himself back from the profoundly meditative region into which he had sunk. He raised troubled eyes to his concerned companion. “It’s okay, bruther. I am okay.”

  “What did you see?” Crowding close, Knucker gazed in fascination down at the shard of polished glass and metal dangling from the swordsman’s fingers.

  “See?” Struggling to resuscitate his affable, easygoing self, he tossed the mirror into the air, watched it tumble end over end a couple of times, and made a nimble catch of the awkward oblong shape with one hand. “I saw myself, of course. What else would you see in a mirror besides yourself?”

  “Here, let me have a look.” The little man extended eager fingers.

  Manifesting an indifference he did not feel, Simna handed it over. Knucker quickly raised it to his face and peered expectantly into the glass.

  Knucker the Knower stared sadly back at him. It was him, to be sure, but not the him that stood on the trail, straight and sure, clear of eye and scrubbed of skin. The face that peered hauntingly out of the mirror was that of the Knucker Ehomba and his companions had found besotted and soiled in a squalid close, lying barely conscious in his own filth. Yellowed phlegm trickled from a corner of the half-open mouth, the face was smeared with accumulated grime and muck, and the disheveled hair was tightly matted enough to repel investigative vermin. It was the face of a man condemned to a short and miserable life of continued drunkenness and destitution.

  He resisted the image and everything it said about him, quickly passing the mirror back to the swordsman. “Something’s wrong. That isn’t me there. That isn’t myself as I am. That’s a reflection of me as I was.” He turned angrily on Ehomba. “Why did you show that to me? Why?”

  “I did not show it to you.” The herdsman’s voice was level and unchanged. “You asked to look into it, and demanded it from Simna. Remember?”

  “Well, it’s wrong, all wrong.” A disgruntled Knucker turned away from both of them.

  “It could be,” Ehomba admitted. “You would have to ask Likulu about that. Myself, I brought it along to use for signaling, not to serve as an ordinary mirror.”

  “Hoy, whatever it be, it sure ain’t no ordinary mirror, bruther.” Simna gripped the rectangle of battered material securely. But he did not look into it again.

  Behind him, a loud chuff signified to the presence of the litah. “I’d like to have a look. I’ve only seen my reflection in still waters.”

  “Hoy, that’s a fine idea!” His characteristic vivacity returning, the swordsman gladly presented the reflective face of the mirror to the big cat, winking at his companions as he did so. He couldn’t wait to see what kind of effect it had on the majestic and insufferably arrogant feline.

  “There.” He strove to position the mirror to ensure that Ahlitah had the best view possible of his own reflection. “Is that all right? Can you see yourself clearly?”

  Luminous, tawny eyes narrowed slightly as they gazed into the glass. “Yes, that’s fine.” The litah nodded slowly. “That is about how it should be.”

  Simna’s expectant “Watch this!” grin soon gave way to a look of uncertainty. Frowning, he directed the hesitant Knucker to come and hold the mirror. As soon as the smaller man had a good grip on the rectangle, the swordsman walked around to stand alongside the big cat, pressing close to the massive, musky mass so that he too could get a good look at the predator’s reflection. Because of the slight angle, his view was not as good as the litah’s, but it was sufficient to show the likeness in the mirror.

  A proud and imperious countenance gleamed back at him, the black litah powerfully reflected in all its mature vigor and resplendent virility. So resplendent, in fact, that the image in the mirror not only sported a pale golden halo, but cast sparks from its extremities, from the tips of its ears and the end of its nose as well as from elsewhere. The black mane had been transformed into a glistening, rippling aurora of ochroid indigo that framed the rest of the regal visage in a magnificent effulgence.

  With a soft snort, Ahlitah turned way from the mirror, unimpressed. “Yes, that’s about right.”

  The redness that bloomed on the swordsman’s cheeks had nothing to do with a surfeit of sunshine. “It can’t be!” Whirling around to confront Ehomba, he shook the fragment of scored, metal-backed glass in the herdsman’s face. “Knucker’s right! There’s something wrong here. This unnatural mirror is possessed by an evil spirit. One that delights in laughing at us.”

  Ehomba did his best to accommodate his companion’s concern. “You may be right, Simna. But do not come to me looking for explanations. I told you: It was a gift, one of many, hastily thrust upon me prior to my leaving the village. To me, it is just a mirror. A piece of polished glass that reflects things as they are—though what other properties it may possess I do not know. To understand more, you would have to—”

  “Ask Likcold, or whatever her name is—I know.” Frustrated, the swordsman started to return the mirror to its owner—and hesitated. “Hoy, bruther, why don’t you have a look?” He gestured behind him. “Everyone else gazed into the glass. Why not you?”

  Ehomba smiled amicably. “I already know what I look like, Simna.”

  “You do, do you?” The smaller man’s gaze narrowed, and there was a glint in his eye. “That’s what I thought. That’s what we all thought.” He held the mirror up to his friend’s expressionless face. “Go on then, Etjole. Have
a look. Or can it be that as a mighty sorcerer, your true reflection might be just a little different from what anyone would expect?”

  The herdsman paused a moment before replying. “Oh, give it here. We are wasting time with this.” Taking the mirror, he held it beneath his face and peered downward. “What a surprise, Simna. I see me.”

  “Hoy, but which you?” Stepping over to his friend’s side, the shorter man struggled to see the herdsman’s reflection. “Here, lower it a bit and let me have a look.”

  “And me also.” An inquisitive Knucker hurried to join them.

  Ehomba tilted the mirror slightly downward. Immediately, his two companions let out comparable yelps and looked away, rubbing at their eyes. Wiping with the heel of one hand at the tears that streamed down his face, Simna snapped at his friend.

  “Would you mind not including the sun with your reflection?”

  “Sorry.” Stepping into the shade, the herdsman repositioned the mirror for his curious friends. Pressing close, Simna and Knucker gazed expectantly into the glass. The reflection of Etjole Ehomba smiled halfheartedly back at them.

  “Give me that!” Jerking the mirror from the herdsman’s fingers, Simna aligned it himself. After adjusting it several times and viewing the resultant reflection from a number of different angles, he finally handed it back to its owner, uncertain whether to be disappointed or relieved.

  “Hoy, it’s you all right. Nothing but you. Just you.”

  “What did you expect, Simna?” As he spoke, Ehomba fastidiously returned the mirror to its place in his pack.

  “Something else, bruther. Something besides your reflection. Something other than normal.” He shrugged. “But it was just you. Might as well have been looking into a mirror in an inn.” Sighing deeply, he put his hands on his hips and stared up the narrow trail that wound through the forest. “How much farther to this Neitheray?”