Into the thinking kingdoms - Alan Dean Foster [106]
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,