Hoy, bruther, what did you give to that poor little thing, anyway?”
“Nothing much.” Ehomba strode along easily as they climbed into the first foothills. “It was a little doll, a carving that had been given to me by one of the women of the village.” He glanced over to where the emancipated Knucker was stopping to inspect every flower they passed, as if seeing and sniffing each one for the first time. “When you are going away on a long journey, people give you peculiar odds and ends, in the hope that this or that frippery might at some time prove useful. I saw no particular use for the carving, and thought that since the girl appeared to be losing everything she owned, she might enjoy the comfort of a doll, however small and hard.”
The swordsman took a playful swipe at the tuft on the end of Ahlitah’s switching tail. Looking back, the big cat’s eyes narrowed. With great dignity, it loped on ahead, effortlessly outdistancing its human companions.
“Maybe you have got kids of your own, bruther, but your woman must have done the raising. No girl that age is going to cuddle up to a piece of black rock.”
“It was not rock.” Ehomba stepped carefully over a patch of small, bright blue flowers.
“Whatever.” The swordsman shook his head sadly. “You’re always the one in such a hurry, Etjole. If you waste time to pause and jabber with children unfortunate in their choice of parents you’ll never get to where you’re going.”
“Yes, I suppose you are right, Simna. There was nothing we could do for her family without making ourselves the targets of those soldiers, and she will probably throw the figurine away at the first opportunity.”
“Don’t take it to heart, bruther.” The swordsman gave his tall friend a condoling slap on the back. “People are always thinking they can make a difference in some stranger’s life, and invariably they end up making things worse.” Raising his voice, he called out to their new companion.
“Hoy, Knuckerman! There’s footpaths all over this place. You’re supposed to be guiding us. Stop snorting those stinking weeds and show us the right one.”
Bright-eyed and alert, the little man straightened and nodded. “Your animal is still moving forward on the correct line. Keep following him. If he makes a wrong turn I’ll let you know. Don’t worry.”
“Why should I worry?” Simna murmured aloud. “We’re following the lead of the man who knows everything. Or used to. I wonder: If we got a drink or two into him—not enough to destabilize him, mind—would he stay sober enough to understand the question and still be able to know the answer?”
As they walked, Ehomba dutifully considered the proposition. “I do not think so. I believe that with Knucker and his knowing it is all one way or all the other. There is no middle ground.”
Simna showed his disappointment. “Too bad.”
“But he is happier this way. And healthier, with a new outlook on the future. Look at him.”
“Hoy, hoy. Clean and sober but useless. A fine trade-off, that.” The swordsman strained to see over the next hill. They were entering dense forest, fragrant with towering pine and spruce. “Didn’t he say something about an interesting town not far ahead?”
Ehomba nodded. “Netherbrae.” The herdsman surveyed the steeply ascending hills. “Two days’ journey from here and well outside the borders of Bondressey.”
“Good.” Simna increased his pace. “I could do with some surroundings that were interesting instead of civilized.”
“Cannot a place be both?”
“Hoy, but given a choice, I much prefer the former over the latter. Ow!”
Reaching up, the swordsman felt the back of his head. The source of the slight but sharp pain was immediately apparent: A sizeable pinecone that had fallen from a considerable height was still rolling to a stop near his feet. Ehomba’s gentle grin at his friend’s discomfort vanished when a similar missile struck him on the shoulder. Together, the two men peered warily up into the trees. As they did, another cone landed several feet away.
Simna took consolation from his tall friend’s ignorance. The herdsman had never seen seeds like these before. There were no towering evergreens in the land of the Naumkib.
“Such trees drop their cones all the time,” the swordsman explained. “We just happened to be walking in the wrong place at the wrong time.” As he finished, another cone struck Ahlitah on his hindquarters. The big cat whirled sharply and smacked the offending seed pod twenty feet before it could roll off his backside and hit the ground. His dignity was more injured than his hip.
“Your location had nothing to do with it.” Knucker had rejoined his new friends, but instead of on them his gaze was focused on the interlocking branches overhead. “We’re being targeted.”
Ehomba’s excellent eyesight could discern no movement in the treetops except for the occasional bird or dragonet. One pair of mated azure dragonets was busy enlarging a prospective nesting hole high up in the otherwise solid bole of a giant spruce. Each would inspect the cavity, lean forward and blast it with a tiny, precisely aligned tongue of flame from its open mouth, then sit back and wait for the fire to burn itself out. The pair was already through the bark and into solid wood. Several days of such careful work would leave them with a fire-hardened black cavity in which to raise their young.
The herdsman kept an eye on them as he and his friends continued to make their way through the cool, enclosing woods. Both dragonets were fully occupied with the task of excavating their nesting hole, and neither paid the least attention to the party of three men and one cat tromping through the forest litter. Certainly they did not pause to kick pinecones at the figures far below.
“I do not see anything throwing these cones at us,” Ehomba declared. Even as he concluded the observation, two more cones landed close by his feet, just missing him. His eyes instantly darted upward, but there was no sign of movement in any of the branches immediately overhead.
A smiling Knucker tapped the side of his nose with a long finger. This time, nothing came out. “We must be under attack by groats.” He scanned the treetops. “Troops of them are common in these woods. They don’t like visitors.”
As a particularly heavy cone plummeted to strike him a glancing blow on the left foot, Simna loudly offered to trade his blade for a good bow and a quiver full of arrows.
“It wouldn’t do you any good,” Knucker assured him.
“Why not?” More insulted than injured by the cone, the swordsman spoke without taking his eyes from the branches overhead. “I’m a pretty good hand with a bow. What are these groats, anyway?”
“Small furry creatures that live in the treetops in forests like these.” Holding his hands out in front of him, Knucker aligned the open palms about three feet apart. “They have long tails and feet that can grip branches as strongly as hands, in the manner of monkeys, but their faces are like those of insects, hard and with strangely patterned eyes.”
Ehomba hopped clear of a falling cone nearly the size of his head that he was fortunate to spot on the way down. It hit the ground with a weighty thump that held the potential for serious injury. As the bombardment continued and the first small cones gave way to far larger woody projectiles, the situation began to deteriorate from merely bothersome to potentially serious.
“I have good eyes and I have been looking for a long time,” the herdsman replied, “and still I see nothing like what you describe.”
Knucker’s expression turned serious. “That’s because the fur of the groat is invisible. You have to look for their eyes, which is the only part of them that reflects light.”
Searching for three-foot-long furry creatures ambling through the treetops was one thing. Hunting only for isolated eyes was far more difficult. A cone that could have knocked a man unconscious struck Ahlitah squarely on his head, provoking a roar that shook the needles of the surrounding trees. It did not intimidate the unseen groats, who continued to rain cones down on the hapless intruders at an ever-increasing rate.
More cones suggested the presence of more groats. While this made the travelers’ situation more perilous, it also improved the opportunities for detecting the elusive creatures. Moments after he executed an elegant if forced little dance that enabled him to dodge half a dozen falling cones, Simna stabbed an arm skyward.
“There! By that big branch thrusting to the east from this tree next to us. There’s one!” Reflexively, he fingered the hilt of his sword. The large compound eyes of the otherwise invisible arboreal tormentor glistened in the afternoon light. No accusatory chattering came from the creature or from any of its companions. The barrage of cones was being carried out in complete silence.
Simna was not silent, however. Ill equipped to deal with an attack from above, he was reduced to screaming imprecations at their unseen adversaries. Unsurprisingly, this had no effect on the volume of cones being dropped upon him and his friends.
By this time they had broken into a run. Their progress was made difficult because they had to keep more or less to the trail as located by Knucker while avoiding not only the falling cones but also the dense mass of trees. Straining to pick out eye reflections in the branches overhead, Ehomba struck one smaller tree a glancing blow with his shoulder. While trying to determine the extent of the resultant bruise, he was hit by two smaller cones launched from above. Gritting his teeth, he pulled himself away from the tree trunk and ran on.
“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?”
“Netherbrae,” Knucker corrected him. “Another day, perhaps two. I know the way, but I have only been there once myself, and that was in passing long ago.”
Gathering himself, the swordsman started forward. “Let’s get after it, then.” He glanced up into the branches. Dragonets could rain fire down on a man, and birds other things, but these he did not mind. It was the groats he had no desire to meet up with again, and where one troop lived, another could follow.
Ehomba and Knucker trailed the swordsman’s lead. Rising from his sitting position, Ahlitah brought up the rear. As he padded along in the humans’ wake, he focused great yellow eyes on the herdsman’s back. He did not say anything, nor did he intend to say anything, about what he had seen. The less he was compelled to converse with men, the better he liked it. But being intelligent, he was curious. For now he would keep that curiosity to himself. Doubtless an explanation would be forthcoming sometime in the future, either by design or by accident.
When the two smaller men had first looked into the mirror held by the man from the south, they had been momentarily blinded by reflected light. Nothing unusual about that.
Except that at the time, the sun had been in front of the herdsman, and not behind him.