~4.19~

The deeper John went into the domain of the One Eyed King, the harder it became for him to pass unnoticed but the less important it became that he did so. The fact that the entrances were guarded meant that as long as no alarm had been sounded, the default assumption would be that no one was within the boundaries of the kingdom who did not belong there.

So long as John did nothing to challenge that assumption, he could pass through the kingdom without having to inconvenience himself by dealing with an armed response. Of course, most strangers in the kingdom of the blind would have made themselves obvious with either noisy groping and stumbling or even noisier lights. The citizenry only used lights when necessary: when exploring unfamiliar territory, when reading, when working with electrical equipment or other dangerous items… within the flat, featureless expanse of the old unfinished water tunnel, they moved around by memory, using the sound of each other’s footfalls to “spot” each other and identifying the dwellings made from tents and boxes and scrap metal and lumber by the discrepancies they created in the echoes.

Human echolocation was not just a talent for comic book superheroes… a few of the actual blind inhabitants of the surface world had proved it was possible, and many of the tunnel dwellers had mastered the technique as well. Even those whose auditory powers lacked the necessary sophistication could tell the differences between when sound bounced down the long, round, stone expanse of the cavernous tunnel and when it encountered an obstacle that either absorbed or reflected it back.

The buildings were sparse and spread wide on the outskirts of the kingdom. These were inhabited by traders, medics, guards, and guides. Had John’s feet shuffled or his pace faltered, someone would have checked on him to see if he was a newer citizen, a visitor, or an intruder, and offered the appropriate response.

His steps remained confident, and he was not challenged.