Kingdoms of Light

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.