Aarvo grabbed the large crystal lens and with incredible force pulled it out cleanly from the ground. He carried it up the ridge of Tromm Kor until he reached the plateau. He laid it on the ground, trying to wedge it between the rocks, but it didn't want to stay put. Then, he held it with one hand, aimed at Eera, and glanced through it. He tried to focus on what was in front of him, but everything looked blurred and distorted. Was he pointing the lens the wrong way? To check, he peeked over the edge, but saw that Eera was right in his line of sight. He went back behind the lens, but again saw only a blurred blotch. How come? Before, he had been able to see the dust and rocks in front of him without any problems! Perplexed, he took a step back, but stopped immediately to keep the lens from falling.
He needed something to prop it up, he thought. He placed the lens on the ground, cut a slit in the rock floor with his sharp hands, filled it with dust, then piled some moonstones around it. He placed the lens in the slit, with his feet pushed the rocks against its base, then tried to let go, but the lens immediately tilted, ready to fall. Aarvo catched it just in time. It didn't work. He mulled over it for a while, then had another idea.
He went and cut two solid slabs of stone, put them in place of the pile of moonstones, and this time managed to keep the lens upright.
Just as it was finishing, the night rushed at him, pulling the day from under his feet. The cold of night hit him like a slap. He shivered and made his core burn hotter to keep him warm. Darkness swallowed him up, but in the sky Eera shone full and bright, blue and white against the tapestry of stars that filled the vastness of space.
Aarvo took a few steps back, then looked through the lens, but once again he could only see a blurred blotch. He went back a few more steps, and the image inside the crystal became slightly sharper. Excited, he began to back down along the plateau. Vague green and brown shapes started slowly appearing inside the lens, then a few shadows, and finally the image coagulated into something solid although frayed and overlapping.
Aarvo felt his eyes crossing. He shut one and finally saw unfolding in front of him a breathtaking view of mountains and green plains surmounted by white swirling clouds. There was Eera, more beautiful and alive than in his dreams! It was strange though, because even if he knew that Eera was floating above him in the sky, looking at her through the lens, it looked as if she were floating below him.
There was also something else that didn't add up, but he struggled to put his finger on it. He pulled back and looked at Eera with his naked eyes. Why couldn't he recognize the point he had just been looking a few instants before? Weird… He searched for a distinctive trait on which to fix his eyes. There! On the left, a little to the south, a narrow strip of land extended at a right angle from the main body of one of the continents. It was perfect. He aimed the lens, stepped back, then frowned, even more puzzled: he must have aimed quite well, because he saw the blue of the ocean and the brown of a continent, but the earth was on the wrong side: it appeared on the right, when it should have been on the left!
He took another look at Eera with his naked eyes and found the continent to his left, where he expected it to be. He looked through the lens again and his jaw dropped. What was he looking at? There was definitely a strip of land, but it was on the right side of the lens, instead that on the left, and it was the wrong shape. What was that then? Another strip of land? But where? He squinted and after a while thought he recognized something. He stepped aside, looked at Eera with his naked eyes once again, then went back behind the crystal and finally understood. But how was that possible? Was everything really upside down and flipped? Top was bottom and right left? Why? It was so weird! How was he going to look at Eera like that?
He moved to the left to better see the edge of the strip of land, but the strip slipped away out of the lens. He moved to the right then and the strip reappeared. It was absurd! If it appeared on the right, he had to move to the left to see it better, if it was at the top, he had to squat. Aaaah, it was crazy!
Wait a minute, he thought, if the image was really upside down… What if he stood upside down too?
He turned around, spread his legs, bent over with his head on the ground and in this ludicrous stance looked through the crystal lens. There it was! Now everything appeared upright and he recognized the right-angled strip of earth he had been looking for.
For some reason, that's how the lens worked. It could have been worse, he thought with a shrug, then another idea came to him: given that the big lens enlarged things, what would happen if he looked at that first lens through a smaller one? Would that one play the same trick on its bigger sister, allowing him to give a closer, upright look at Eera?
He ran down the mountain ridge, grabbed a small crystal lens and went back. He shut one eye, looked at the larger lens through the smaller one and groaned. Apparently, his hunch was wrong, because, yes, Eera looked bigger, but she was still upside down and flipped. Well, you couldn't have it all, he thought, and bent over. He carried the little lens in front of his eye and in an instant found himself swimming over Eera's sky, peering at the vastness of its brown mountains and its green plains! Up and down stopped making any sense and the feeling that he was watching Eara from above became so intense that a vertigo swept through his head. He lost his balance and fell over.
What a dreadful feeling, he thought sitting up straight, shaking what was left of the dizziness off his brain. It wasn't difficult enough already watching Eera, now he'd also have to fight off vertigo. He didn’t want to fall over again, so put down the lens and went to get a big slab of stone. He cut it with his sharp hands until he had an inclined surface, then took the lens, laid down upside down on his stone bed and plunged back into the sky. This time, he felt as if he had been glued to the ceiling of a huge vault looking down at Eera’s lands. He took one hand off the small lens and clung to the stone slab against his back. The sense of vertigo was both dreadful and exhilarating at the same time. It was incredible! He really felt as if he had crossed the vast expanses of space and was floating above Eera's skies, above breathtaking mountains, oceans and immense clouds, watching life flowing before him in all its grace and beauty.
Aarvo kept watching Eera all night long, surveying every single place he could reach with his starlooker, peering at the lands, mountains and endless oceans of Eera until excitement turned into overwhelming tiredness.
****
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