Into the thinking kingdoms - Alan Dean Foster [108]
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.
XVII
Simna was anticipating a fairly typical isolated mountain village, with pigs and heptodons, chickens and raphusids running loose on rutted, muddy streets, children wailing, laundry hanging from unshuttered windows, and the pervasive stink of waste both human and animal. Given such low expectations, it was not surprising that when it finally came into view through the surrounding trees, the reality of Netherbrae gave a boost to his spirits as well as to his tired legs.
They were all relieved. The previous day had seen them climbing steadily up a trail become increasingly steep. Though it was not mentioned, each of them found the possibility of a night’s sleep in a real bed quietly exhilarating.
“What an appealing little place.” His fingers locked in the straps