The Light That Never Was Read Free Page A

blinked in a sudden flash of light as Brance lit a candle. He brought out a crude palette and a piece of art fabric stretched over a thick frame.
    “You take the candle,” he said.
    In the candlelight Brance’s eyes gleamed wildly, and it occurred to Gwyll that the man had behaved somewhat irrationally from the beginning. “You asked for it,” Brance said. He laughed gleefully. “Follow me.”
    Carrying the candle awkwardly—he had never seen one before except in paintings—Gwyll stumbled after him into the thickening darkness. They halted beside a stone-walled enclosure, a square that measured three or four strides across. Gwyll’s candle revealed nothing within it but creamy mud.
    Brance leaned over and wedged the art fabric between the wall and a protruding rock. He placed the palette on another rock and slowly backed away.
    “Don’t hold the light so close!” he hissed. “Here—let me have it.”
    The mud stirred. What looked like a quivering puddle of slime spread slowly across its surface and reared up suddenly. It assumed a shape, became a bloated oval of pulsating, mud-encrusted jelly, and flowed toward the palette.
    A sudden wave of revulsion left Gwyll trembling. His stomach revolted against the nauseating stench, and his mind utterly rejected the disgusting, blotched, shimmering mucosity of the creature’s body. The mere thought that such a slimy mass was alive appalled and horrified. He clenched his teeth until his jaws ached, but he continued to watch.
    It reached the palette and reared itself above it, a froth of foul scum through which the lips of the paint cups seemed dimly visible.
    And then it began to paint. A multitude of fine filaments darted to and fro, and on the fabric a speck of paint appeared, and then another… five minutes passed, ten minutes, the picture grew with infinite slowness. When finally Brance blew out the candle a mere square inch had been covered. The colors were only dimly distinguishable in the feeble, flickering light, but already Gwyll could recognize the texture .
    He did not want to believe. He said, “You mean—that thing —painted—”
    “It won’t work long when there’s a light,” Brance said.
    Gwyll repeated weakly, “That thing painted—”
    “The painting Milfro sent to you. Yes.”
    He tugged gently at Gwyll’s arm and led him away.
    “I can’t believe it,” Gwyll muttered. “It paints in the dark?”
    “It doesn’t see as we see. Obviously. It must perceive some light that’s invisible to us. Certainly it paints things that never were—that couldn’t be, in the universe we know. I’ve never been able to identify anything in its paintings, and yet I’ve felt from the beginning that it must be painting what it sees. I suppose my human prejudices won’t let me credit it with the imagination of genius.”
    “What is it?”
    “Scientists have a thoroughly unpronounceable name for it, but to the natives it’s just a swamp slug. It’s never been found anywhere except on this island, which is probably why so little is known about it. I took photographs to the zoology professors at Nor University and none of them had ever seen one. They offered to buy it. Said they’d like to study it.” He laughed harshly. “They offered me ten dons for it, which seems like a rather low price to pay for a great artist—but of course they didn’t know about the paintings. They thought they were making a very generous offer for a rare but inconsequential kind of gastropod, and they seemed offended when I told them to come over and catch their own. Maybe it’s just as well that they didn’t try. The natives tell me the things used to be common, but these days you almost never see one, what with more and more of the swamp being drained and cultivated. This is the only one I’ve ever seen.”
    “Do you have other paintings?”
    “Seven,” Brance said. “Seven plus the one I sent to Milfro. It was a long time before it got the idea that the whole