"Amorous little pixies, aren't they?" observed Cezer admiringly. Next to him, Mamakitty looked on with academic interest. Cats did not blush, and neither did she.
The female they had first encountered zipped over to hover in front of Oskar's face. Her gossamer skin was flushed turquoise and her jewel-like eyes bulged even more than usual. "We can only mate and reproduce when we are out of the water."
"No wonder they were so anxious to have us help them out of the sea." Taj watched while an octet of thweens swirling near him executed a Byzantine sequence of aerial acrobatics that would have struck a host of hummingbirds dumb with admiration. "This is undeniably entertaining—but it's not getting us any closer to a purpling shore."
"We are glad we could be of assistance," Mamakitty informed the female. Rather primly, Oskar thought. "But we have to move on. We have our own agenda to fulfill."
As she turned to go, the male and two companions materialized in front of her. "Oh no, don't leave! Must thee be on thy way so soon? Thy company is so very welcome to us."
"I'm sorry." Advancing, she forced them to move aside. "We have to follow the path that has been set before us. But if you enjoy our conversation so much, why not accompany us? As long as we keep making progress, we'll be happy to keep you company."
Three thweens put their heads together. When they separated, it was another male who spoke. "Some will choose to remain here, where there are known dangers and familiar food. But many will come with you. All the Bluesome is our home, and we do need to spread our seed as far and wide as we can."
"Come along then." Cocoa was pleased by the decision. Even when they weren't mating, the thweens were fun to watch. "We'll protect you from the negwen, and you can help us find food."
"Done, done—done it be!" Tiny webbed hands clapped wetly.
The thweens proved not only good company but avid guides, helping to ensure that the travelers stayed on course in their trek across the featureless, shallow sea. When not airborne, they rested on the shoulders and heads of the travelers, luxuriating in the unique opportunity to see their world without having to expend a constant flow of energy. They piped tiny curses whenever a school of negwen or other predators was spotted, and cheered as the agile, active cat-folk snatched up the hated archenemies one by one.
They restricted their own mealtimes to coincide with those of their new, much larger friends. Darting and diving beneath the water, they gathered up armfuls of food for their own consumption. Most of it was of such small size that even the sharpest-eyed of the travelers could barely descry it. The thweens assured them that it was all delicious, even if largely invisible to the naked eye. Meanwhile, drawn by the commotion and the calling of their fellows, more and more of the amphibious pixies arrived in a steady stream to join the procession—and to mate. Watching them, unable to avoid their ardent aerial couplings, Oskar found himself glancing more often in Cocoa's direction than would otherwise have been the case.
In this fashion travelers and thweens progressed eastward for several weeks, taking much mutual pleasure in each other's company. "What is this briny basin we are crossing called?" Mamakitty asked one morning.
"Thee really know not?" The thween fluttering beside her sweating face seemed genuinely startled. "Why, it be the Eye of the Beholder, of course."
"Evocative," observed Samm in his usual laconic manner.
"There is nothing else in the Kingdom of Blue? No land?" Cezer inquired curiously.
"Land?" The female thween sounded puzzled. "Why should there be land? There be only the Eye of the Beholder, blue and omnipresent."
"Something I've been wondering about." Oskar stepped over the siliceous skeleton of a long-dead vrorvel that was lying on the bottom. "What is it that you thweens do? Do you just swim around and eat and reproduce? Is that your only purpose?"
"Sounds very like the life of a certain dog I know," Cezer gibed.
Oskar made a face. "I wasn't criticizing. I'm just curious. Dogs do other things," he added, a bit defensively. "We hunt, and provide companionship, and dig things up, and bury them again. Occasionally, we sing."
"That's a matter of opinion," put in Taj, who ought to know.
"Well, not compared to your kind, of course," Oskar admitted. "But to us, it's singing."
"We do not sing," the thweens declared, "though we occasionally burble. And out of the water, we hum. It is a way of calling to one another. Mostly, we try to eat and reproduce as much as we can without disturbing the Eye."
Mamakitty frowned. "Disturbing? How can creatures as small as yourselves possibly disturb all this?" She indicated the horizonless surface through which they were traipsing.
"There can be quite a lot of us. There are now especially, thanks to thy help."
"Our help?" The conversation was leaving Oskar more confused than enlightened.
"Yes." The thween zipped over to hover before the dog-man's face. "Thee consume the negwen and others that eat the thweens. In their absence, we can propagate further. We must, however, have a care not to upset the balance, or it will disturb the Eye." Bulging orbs fell slightly. "Perhaps we have not been sufficiently forthcoming with you. We be parasites on the Eye, you see."
Mamakitty shook her head. "I'm afraid we don't understand."
Flitting up and down in front of her, the thween tried to explain. "All those delicious little bits you see us eating are important to the continued health and function of the Eye. If we eat too many, it will become irritated and not function as well. By preying upon the thweens, the negwen and vrorvels and such maintain a balance. It is not a balance that be to our liking, but there be nothing we can do about it." Tiny glistening oculi looked up at her afresh. "Unless we have the assistance of bold outsiders such as thyselves."
"Well, we're glad to help." Cezer sloshed steadily onward. "But I still don't see how you wee folk can irritate an entire sea, no matter how many of you there are. How do you upset an ocean, anyway?"
The thween was about to reply when a sudden shaking commenced underfoot. The myriad little creatures darting through the water felt it first. They began swimming faster and faster, occasionally bumping into one another or into the legs of the travelers, until the last of them had vanished off to the west. The airborne multitude immediately ceased mating and bolted in the same direction.
Looking down, Oskar could see that the water was frothing around his ankles. The hitherto stable bottom of translucent granules had begun to shudder. "Is this what you meant by 'disturbing' the ocean?" He addressed the one thween that remained. "If it doesn't get any worse than this, then what's to be concerned about?"
"Ocean?" The clearly agitated thween zipped nervously back and forth in front of the scruffy mustache. "What ocean?"
"The one we've been walking across for the past several weeks," Cocoa reminded it impatiently.
The thween spun around to look at her. "There be no ocean here. There be only the Eye of the Beholder."
"Yes, of course," Mamakitty commented irritably. "That's what you call it."
"That be what we call it," the thween explained, "because that be what it is. The Eye of the Beholder. Or if thee prefer, an Eye of the Beholder. It dwells within the kingdoms of light and sees all, observes all, memorizes all. When thee see the kingdoms from without, as only visitors such as thyselves can do, do not most of thee focus on the Kingdom of Blue? It be because that kingdom, which be all the Eye, be looking back at and contemplating thee. Not all eyes be round, thee know. There be many ways of seeing. But there be only one Eye of the Beholder."
The trembling underfoot intensified. "You're not making any sense," Oskar insisted. "We're standing in a sea, not an eye."
"If this was an eye, even a very big eye," Cezer added, pointing to one of his own oculars, "where's the pupil?"
"Below thee." Now the thween was looking around anxiously, as if expecting the arrival of something unspecified and unpleasant. "It be the dark area beneath the transparent cornea. These past weeks thee have been
wading through the protective optic fluid that forms a film atop the cornea. And now I really must go. I am sorry for thee, for thee have been good friends to the thweens." It waved once before dashing off in the wake of its fellows.
"Hey, ssst, wait a minute!" Cezer yelled. To no avail. In the absence of the thweens, there was now only the increasingly intense undulating underfoot. It was not severe enough to knock them off their feet, and the ground beneath the water did not crack or shift, but the sensation was unsettling, to say the least.
"That's just swell," Taj muttered. "By helping the adorable little creatures, we've gone and upset some kind of territorial balance. But what kind?"
Mamakitty held her ground, watching the water foam around her legs. "Maybe now that they've left, whatever they've disturbed will settle down."
Bending low, Cezer was staring at the crystalline layer beneath the surface. "Did you ever notice the funny shapes that kind of lie under the ground here? Maybe we should try and dig down a little ways and see what we find."
Oskar was gazing anxiously southward. "I don't think that would be a good idea. We might aggravate this Eye further. Not that it's going to matter. Not at this point."
"What are you talking about?" Straightening, Cezer saw that everyone else was staring in the same direction. As he joined them in looking, his mouth gaped involuntarily.
A tsunami was rushing toward them, rising higher and higher above the hitherto featureless southern horizon. Though tinted with the same ubiquitous blueness that suffused everything in this kingdom, it was noticeably darker than the water in which they stood or the sky above their heads. At its forefront, riding the crest of the wave, was an entire uprooted forest of crooked trees from which the branches and leaves had already been stripped.
Then the swordsman's jaw dropped still farther. The dark, twisted growths were not trees, and the wave rushing toward them was composed of something other than water. He identified both well before his brain would countenance and accept the inescapable conclusion.
What he thought were trees were in fact lashes, lining the leading edge of a most monstrous eyelid, embarked upon a single gargantuan blink.
SIXTEEN
"This is it," whispered Taj. "So close to our destination, only to be crushed like ants." The Eyelid of the Beholder stretched from horizon to horizon, from east to west as far as they could see. There was no imaginable path of escape, and the songster did not hesitate to say so.
Only Oskar, possessed as he was of an indefatigable optimism, refused to bow down before the oncoming darkness. "Then we'll just have to find an unimaginable one."
"Oh, well-spoken, master of barking orations!" snarled Cezer sarcastically. "My guess is you have less than a minute to think of something before we are blinked out of existence." Standing firmly, agitated optic fluid swirling around his legs, the swordsman shut his eyes and prepared himself as best he could for what appeared to be an inescapable demise.
Mamakitty stayed calm and composed, even though devoid of hope. "And to think that we brought this upon ourselves. If we hadn't killed so many negwen and vrorvels, if we hadn't helped the thweens and allowed them to multiply so freely…" Her voice trailed away, lost in the eerily sonorous hiss of the onrushing eyelid.
As it drew ever nearer, it seemed to accelerate, though this was only an illusion caused by its increasing proximity. Cocoa closed her eyes, and Mamakitty turned stolidly away, but Oskar found he could not tear his gaze from the onrushing phenomenon. Then it was next to them, on top of them, and—over them. Despite his determination to meet his fate boldly, he flinched. The eyelid reached his head.
And passed over it.
Still crouched, he turned to follow the edge of the immense fleshy flap as it continued on its northward rush, blotting out sky and clouds. The illusion of all-pervasive size had been complete, so much so that the eyelid had appeared to be much closer to the surface than it actually was. There existed, at least in the place where they were standing, an air space between optic fluid and the underside of the lid some six feet in height. While this caused problems for Samm, who practically had to lie down to avoid bumping up against the fleshy barrier, everyone else was able to remain standing.
"What do you know?" Having opened her eyes to pitch darkness, Cocoa was gently jabbing upward with a hand, prodding the underside of the eyelid. The rubbery tissue flexed slightly beneath her fingers but did not otherwise react. "We're not dead."
"Maybe," posited Taj hopefully, "the eyelid will retract again once it has responded to the irritation caused by the thweens."
While easy to utilize, time is an expensive weapon. Unable in the absence of daylight to know the true passage of time, they were reduced to making crude estimates. Certainly, Mamakitty determined, a goodly number of hours had passed when she finally rose from where she had been sitting in the optic fluid and pointed, forgetting that in the darkness her companions were unable to follow the gesture.
"Our destination lies eastward. I took care to mark it well before the light was taken from us. By putting one foot carefully in front of the other, we should be able to continue, albeit slowly, on our chosen path. We have food and drinking water in the packs Samm carries, firm footing beneath our feet, and if necessary we can hunt for negwens by feel."
Cezer voiced his doubts about this proposed course of action. "I pride myself on my sense of direction, but I can't see a damn thing. A hamster could be making faces at me and I wouldn't know it. Sure, we could continue on the way we're supposed to go. But we could also become disoriented and wander around in circles until we drop."
"Have you a better suggestion?" she asked him bluntly.
"No," he grumbled. "According to the rest of you, it seems I never have a better suggestion."
Careful to stay within earshot of one another, they began to move, forming a line behind Mamakitty. Everyone periodically announced their presence to ensure that no one wandered off. In this manner they made progress, pausing only to eat, drink, and rest. But it was progress that, without any real means of orienting themselves, remained dubious at best.
"Light!" Cocoa's exclamation caught everyone off guard. "I see light!"
Oskar kept moving until he bumped up against her. Whether out of excitement or indifference, she did not object to the contact. "Where? I don't see anything."
"You wouldn't, lover of carrion." Judging from the sound of his voice, Cezer was standing slightly to the right and in front of him. "It's directly ahead of us, right in our path."
Taj strained to see. "Is it the eyelid finally blinking back?"
"Use your bird brain," Samm admonished his friend. "The light is appearing in front of us. Unless we have become badly turned around, that means it's coming from the east. Since it emerged from the south and blinked its way northward, if the eyelid was retracting, then any first light we detect should appear to our north."
"It's blue," Mamakitty announced encouragingly. "Naturally it would be blue."
"That's strange." Cezer had to squint, even cat-sharp vision needing a moment to readjust from the total darkness. "There seem to be multiple sources."
The pale blue phosphorescence advancing to meet them was not a consequence of any gargantuan blink. Instead, it revealed itself on a much more modest scale. It wiggled and writhed and was streaked with dark patches that did not glow. Though faint by comparison with daylight, or even the reflection of the moon, in the otherwise complete blackness it produced enough illumination to reveal the absence of eyes and the presence of teeth: short, ugly, serrated triangular teeth that lined the rim of a circular mouth equipped for gripping and sucking.
"Not negwens," Oskar whispered unnecessarily, "or vrorvels, or like anything else we've seen."
The nearest of the blue worm-shapes suddenly lunged in his direction. He had barely enough time to draw his sword and swing wildly, striking the serpentine blueness just behind a gaping fist-size maw of a mouth. Phosphorescent blue liquid fountained from the gash. Some of it la
nded on Oskar's thighs and feet. It dripped down his legs, flickering as if blue fireflies had been glued to his clothing. Gradually it faded away to become one again with the darkness.
Wounded, the surprised worm had drawn back. As it did so, another and then another, each equally lambent, equally grotesque, emerged from the granular surface underlying the warm optic fluid, corkscrewing their way upward from below.
"It's another kind of parasite that lives in the Eye. But this one lives in the body of it, in the flesh. Or in whatever it is we're walking on that passes for flesh. Our presence must be drawing them out. They must emerge only in darkness, when the Eye is shut." Having observed the attack on his companion, a tense Cezer had drawn his own weapon. "By the look of those fangs, I'll bet it usually preys upon other parasites."
"We're not parasites." Watching the approach of the ghostly phosphorescent blue shapes, Oskar held his sword at the ready. The blade pulsed with fading blue light from the blood of whatever it was he had cut. "Maybe they'll see that we're not their usual prey and leave us alone."
"Oh, let's bet our lives on that assumption, shall we?" An apprehensive Taj held one of his knives loosely out in front of him. "You march up to the nearest one, Oskar, and identify yourself. The rest of us will wait here so we can properly gauge its confused response."
One of the huge worms raised its forward half out of the optic fluid and began swaying from side to side, examining them with sensory organs that were not eyes. When it dropped back down into the supportive liquid, a second worm promptly repeated the scrutiny. Mamakitty counted half a dozen of them, each bigger and thicker through the middle than Samm had been in his original body. Much bigger.
"We've killed negwen and other parasites." Silhouetted against the wriggling inimical bluishness, she held her sword out in front of her. "We can kill these as well."
"Uh-huh," Cezer murmured skeptically, "sure we can."
Cocoa whirled on him. "Must you always be so cursed negative!"
Kingdoms of Light Page 26
