He was Naill Renfro. There was no Ayyar, no Iftin, in him! He was Naill Renfro, and this was only a spaceship—like his father's.
Suit racks—empty. Naill steadied himself against the corridor wall with one hand. Dust was soft under his skin boots. The smell of age—of emptiness. . . . He was Naill Renfro exploring an old ship. So—no suits. But there could be other things here adapted to their needs. He pulled himself on, keeping his thoughts rigidly fixed on those needs and his human off-world past.
Arms cabinet—also empty. A second disappointment. This spacer appeared to be stripped of everything that could serve survivors. Perhaps the landing had been an emergency one and the crew had departed with their equipment, never to return.
No weapons—no suits. Naill leaned his head against the wall and tried to think clearly, to remember the stores on the Lydian Lady and where they had been. It was a struggle to do that with the awful horror of this place tearing at his mind, churning in his stomach, rising in a sour taste at the back of his throat.
Where now? He shuffled on. There was one more—just one more place to check. Naill was sure he did not have the strength to venture any farther into the spacecraft, to climb to another level. Here! He lunged and his good hand pressed on the panel of the compartment he sought. Here were the tools, the supplies of outer-skin repairs. The inner layout of the ships had not changed so much over the years that they were not arranged in the same general pattern. He forced the panel open.
His cry of triumph echoed hollowly down the passageway. Then he had them in his hand, the protective goggles to be worn while using a welding beam. Their key to freedom? Holding those tight to his chest, Naill wavered down the passage, came into the open and descended the ramp.
"What—?" Sissions met him.
"Listen . . ." Naill had the dim beginnings of a plan. He waved the goggles at the former Survey man. "With these on, the sun can't be too bad."
"One pair only—there are six of us." Torry joined them.
"One man leading, wearing these," Naill explained. "The rest of us blindfolded, linked together, by rope if need be. We could take turns with the goggles."
Sissions had those now. "It might work! How about it, Ladim?"
The former medico took them in turn, snapped the protective lenses over his eyes and looked about him.
"Can't be sure, of course, until we try. Used at short intervals, taking turns as Renfro suggests . . . well, we may never have a better chance. Though how far we have to travel west before we find any decent cover—"
"Not west!" That was so emphatic that they all turned to face the girl. She had been sitting on the ground at the foot of the ramp, but now she stood erect.
"Westward That will be watching . . . waiting. . . . Once It knows we have escaped—"
"South to the river, then?" Derek asked uncertainly. The girl appeared so sure of what she was saying that it impressed all of them.
"No!" Her answer was as determined as before. "East!"
"Back to Iftcan?" began Monro.
Naill had been studying Ashla. She was gripped by that half-fey mood he had seen her display so many times during their flight together. Just as he had pulled on his human heritage to dare the ship, so was she now pulling herself into her Iftin personality.
"Not Iftcan." Her head moved slowly from side to side. "The day of Iftcan is done. That forest was withered and will leaf no more. We must go to the Mirror. This is laid upon us," she cried out fiercely, directly at Sissions. "We must go to Thanth!"
"I say get out of here and head west!" Derek protested.
"She's right about one thing," Torry cut in. "They—whoever or whatever controls this place—would expect us to do just that—west with no long way around. It might just be smarter to circle around by starting east, then south to the river."
"We go to Thanth!" Illylle repeated. And now Sissions added his will to hers. But not too completely: "East . . . for now."
They pointed eastward from the forgotten ship, hastening to make the most of the remaining hours of darkness. The valley wherein the old spacecraft had set down ended in a cliff up which they climbed, coming out on a waste of crushed crystal sand, facing, some yards away, the White Forest where moonlight flickered and sparked.
"No trail through that," Monro pointed out. "How will we know we're going straight and keeping east?"
"Those branches"—Sissions indicated the nearest "tree"—"are all right-angled and they grow in an established pattern. See this one and that? We keep our eye on the third branch up on every second tree. Let's get through this before sunup if we can."
It was a strange way to trace a path through the crystalline wilderness, but the Survey Scout, trained to note just such oddities, was right. The third branch on every second tree pointed in the same direction—a long glittering finger to the east. And they took turns watching for it, the rest shielding their eyes against too much of the reflection and glitter.
Naill was in the lead on his turn as pathfinder when he saw mirrored on a trunk of a neighboring tree a dark patch which came into better perspective and stopped him short. In spite of the distortions of that reflected image, there could be no mistaking the space suit.
The fugitives clustered together, to stare at the broken vision on the surface of the pillar. How far away it might be they had no idea.
Illylle spoke first. "It is not moving."
"No. Could be that it is waiting for us to walk right up and get caught again," Monro commented.
"I think not." Sissions' head had turned from right to left and back again. He had glanced from the image on the tree to the other growths about them. "It is behind us and perhaps to the right. And it is not moving at all."
Torry gave a grunt. "Close to dawn now, I judge. That thing may believe there's no need for hurry, that it can round us up quickly enough when the sun rises. I'd say we'd best make tracks and fast."
Torry's suggestion was accepted. They did hurry their pace as best they could. And when they left the reflection of that space suit behind, it did not show again, though they kept watch for it. So the medico's guess could be right—the guardian of the White Forest saw no reason to hurry in pursuit.
When the fugitives paused again, it was to make their final preparations against the sun. Torry argued that because of his training and ability to judge properly the efficiency of the goggles, he must have first chance as guide. The rest tore strips from their clothing and adjusted blindfolds which were as light-reducing as they could make them, after linking themselves together with the fiber rope.
Their advance slowed to hardly more than a crawl with Torry supplying a running description of the ground ahead, warning of missteps and obstructions. In spite of that there were falls, bumps, painful meetings with crystal growths. It was a desperate try, and only the heartening assurances from Torry that they were making progress kept them to it.
"Sun's hit the trees," he reported laconically some time later.
They were all aware now of the heat of those rays on their bodies, of a measure of light working through their blindfolds.
"What results with the goggles?" Sissions asked hoarsely.
"No worse than moonlight—yet," Torry reported.
So they were working this far. But suppose that the wyte pack waited ahead? They could not fight those blindfolded. And that suit—was it tramping stolidly along behind them, ready to gather them in as easily as it had netted Ashla and Naill back on the borders of the waste?
"Ah . . ." Torry broke off his stream of directions with a small cry. Naill tensed and then relaxed as the other added, "End of the wood . . . open beyond. And—I'm ready for relief."
They had drawn lots before they had started and were linked on the rope in the order of those lots. Naill's hands went out readily, felt the goggles fall into them as Torry pulled his waiting blindfold down over his own eyes. Adjusting the lenses and pushing up his blinder was an awkward process, but a few moments later Naill blinked out into a bright morning which the treated goggles turned into a bearable blaze.
He hurried to help Torry and the others on the rope and then faced into the open country. It was barren rock and sand—the sand running in sweeps as if it were the water of dry rivers. And one of those sandy streams, while thick to plod through, ran east to give them smoother footing. Naill plowed toward that, towing his line of followers.
How far were they now from the valley of the ship? Naill had no idea of how much ground they had covered. He glanced back at intervals, each time expecting to see the suited sentry emerge from the blinding glitter of the White Forest, just as he listened for the snarling cry of the wyte pack.
The river of sand, which had seemed a good road away from the Forest, did not serve them long, for it took a sharp turn to the north, and Naill was faced with the fact that they must somehow make their way up along a ridge. They rested, drinking sparingly of their water, eating nuts and dried berries.
"No reason to think it was going to be easy," Monro commented. "My turn to take over now. Maybe—if we went up one at a time—me helping—"
Naill's hands were fumbling with the goggles when he saw Ashla move.
"Wait!" Her word was an order. She was facing toward the Forest, which was now but a glittering spot behind them.
"It—stirs! It knows! Now It wonders . . . soon It will move!" Her hands were fists. Naill could see only her lips, tight and compressed below the edge of her blindfold.
Sissions was on his feet, too. "Illylle is right. Pursuit will come."
"We can't run and we can't fly. Looks as if we've had it," Monro commented.
"No!" The protest came from the girl. "Now!" She whirled about to Naill as if she could see him through her blindfold. "This is my time to lead!"
"Not your turn—"
"This is not a matter of turns—or of anything but the knowing. And I have the knowing, I tell you! This is the time."
Sissions spoke. "Give her the goggles." The tone of that order overruled Naill's rise of protest.
His own blindfold was in place again when she spoke. "I am ready. Now we link hands—we do not hold the rope."
Her own fingers tightened about his. He reached out his left arm with caution, groped for Monro's hand. Then . . .
Naill had no words to actually describe what was happening, and Ayyar recognized it only dimly as a flow of the Power. But it was as if he could see—not physically but mentally—that through him flowed an awareness of his surroundings which was coming not by the way of his own senses, but from the girl, to pass along that line of men hand-clasped together.
So linked, they began a scramble up and out of the sand river and across the ridge beyond. Naill could sense, too, the strain and drive that worked in Ashla. Yet she kept going and they followed, at a better pace than they had held since sunup.
"It has learned." Her voice was low and hoarse. "Now It will truly move! Its servants gather."
And Naill heard—as if from very far off—the soulless wail of a wyte.
"Will with me!" That came as a plea from her. "Iftin warriors, Mirrormaster, Sea Lord—once you all stood blade and power against That Which Abides. Now will with my will, fight with those wills as you did with your blades in a leaf time now gone!"
Naill could not guess what response she aroused from the others. But in him there was a glow of anger and above it a wild, fierce determination to stand against the Enemy. He shouted a long-forgotten battle cry and did not know he mouthed it, for now he was not hand-linked to a company of fugitives; he was marching with his men, going to the First Ring of Iftcan. And in him pride and belief were no longer dim but fiery bright and clear as the green spark that had tipped his blade to open the Guard Way of the Mirror.
Iftcan and his vision of the waste melted into one, fitting together so that green growth merged with rock, fertile forest soil with sand. And he was Ayyar as Ayyar had been in the greatest day of his life.
"The Mirror Ring—oh, my brothers—there is the Mirror Ring!" Illylle's voice cut through Naill's dream, and the vision she now saw fitted over the vision of Iftcan's Tree Towers—gray mountain with over it a patch of cloud growing and spreading to cut away the glare of the sun. They were all running, speeding across ground they did not see with their eyes.
Then—the Enemy struck! Heat—light—something akin to lightning cracked in their faces. That brooding fear Naill had felt waiting beyond the walls encasing the Mirror Road took on body—strength. The wailing of the wytes was no longer distant. And his long-ago battleground became here and now.
Why he did it he could not have answered sensibly, but he flung back his head, raised his face to a sky from which, through the fold of cloth, came a searing, baking heat. Then Naill called—not only with voice, but with mind, with every part of him. And the shrill "hooooorrruuuur" of that call carried, echoed and re-echoed.
"On—on!" That was Illylle's demand. Somehow she was keeping them moving, summoning up their will, their strength, projecting for them the road they must take.
There was a roll of sound—a muttering along the distant reaches of the sky. A puff of wind blew in their faces, swirling up sand and grit to score the skin. But it was not the furnace blast of the waste; it was cool, carrying with it the smell of the forest.
And with the wind rode other things—feathered things—hooting, protesting, yet coming. Wheeling, dipping above those who ran, the quarrin kind had answered Naill's summoning—not only Hoorurr, but perhaps all of his species still holding to the shadows and glades of Iftcan. The fugitives could not see them, but they felt the impact of the quarrin thoughts, heard through the wind the sound of their wings. Three times the birds circled the runners, and then they dropped behind to where the wytes howled on a fresh and open trail.
The heat about them was the heat of anger. It had been so long since That Which Abode had roused to full participation in any struggle that It was sluggish, unable to summon quickly old strengths and powers. That was what saved them. For had It struck earlier with the pressure It could exert, they would have been stamped to nothingness in the dust of the waste.
"On—up!" Illylle's battle cry was a hacking sob. Naill's hand dropped hers; flung out his right arm and closed it about her waist. She was stumbling, hardly able to keep her feet. But before them was the barrier wall of the Mirror Road, and they had met it where the rocks were as high as his head.
"Here!" He drew all the runners together with a call as he held up the girl, felt her wriggle in his hold. Then she was out of his grasp, gone—and out of his mind in the same move. A curtain had fallen between them.
"Over this!" Naill pictured in his own mind for the others the barrier about the road as he had seen it days ago. He stood with his hand on the rock wall, drawing each in turn to it, starting them to climb.
The wytes cried very closely now, their hunting bays broken by snaps, snarls—as if they fought. Naill guessed that the quarrin harassed that portion of the enemy forces.
The invisible power was the worst. Naill was thrust back and back—pulled from the roadway which he knew meant safety. Another step and he would be lost in his blindness. The heat bit into his brain, spread a blasting numbness down nerve and muscle.
Out of somewhere came a rope; a noose settled about his shoulders, jerked tight about his arms, tight enough to wring a gasp of pain from him. Now the pull was in the opposite direction. Naill stumbled and spun, breathless, only half conscious of the struggle.
"Dark the seed, green the Leaf—
Iftin power, Iftin belief . . ."
Had he said that, thought it? Had it come from him at all? A second in which to wonder, a moment of release from pressure growing intolerable, then with a bruising crash his body brought up against the rock wall of the road. He climbed—to fall into a swift stream of cool air and the welcoming hands of his companions.
The roll of thunder grew into a mighty beat of sound. Naill dragged off his blindfold and followed the others as they ran along the road. Above them was a gray ribbon of cloud, the edge of a mighty sunshade which stretched from the east as if it had its birth in the sky above dying Iftcan.
There stood the gate of the Guard Way. No sword had been drawn to open it this time, but the symbol on the keystone glowed green. The stairs—they took those stairs still at a breakneck pace, halting only when they reached the shelf overhanging the Mirror.
A storm was coming, such a storm as had beaten the forest when Naill sheltered in Iftsiga. No wind reached into the basin which held the Mirror, yet the water was troubled. It moved in ripples around and around, rising with each stir of that circling.
Forces were gathering: forces such as Naill Renfro had never known—forces Ayyar held in awe.
Illylle moved a little away from the rest. She had swept off the goggles, stood watching the circling of the water.
"There has been a seeding. There is now a growing—soon will come the Leafing. But without the seeds, there will be no Leaf! If a Leaf is willed—protect the seeds and the growing. Give us now Your judging. Shall the seeds endure until the Leafing?"
Was that an invocation of something—something utterly opposed to that which they fled—something that was the very life of Janus? Naill believed it to be so. And they stood to witness the answer to her appeal.
Up and up the water raced about the sides of the Mirror frame. It lapped against the edge of the ledge on which they stood, yet none of them retreated. Naill felt no fear. Once more he seemed on the edge of a great discovery. The time might not yet be fully ripe, but someday it would—and he was a part of it!
The first of those waves touched the peaks that cradled the Mirror—touched, lapped, spilled over. Faster and faster the water swirled. It was now ribboned and laced with green foam, spun by the speed of its boiling. Over through a dozen—two dozen—channels poured that flood, fountaining out into the waste beyond the boundaries of the Mirror frame. The wind howled, the clouds broke, pouring down a second kind of flood.
Under that deluge the fugitives gasped and reeled, but they did not seek shelter. It was a growing rain, a rain to encourage sprouting seeds—new life.
Lightning . . . lashes were laid in whip lines across the sky to the west. There was an answering blast there—a white glare flaring skyward as if to dry the clouds instantly of their water burden. A terrible consuming anger strove to strike them, even this far away, as a wave of expanding energy. Then the rain closed down. The Mirror continued to pour its substance out and down to water the desert plain.
How long did that continue—the Mirror spilling, the clouds emptying rain? A few hours—a day? Naill could not have told. He was only aware that in time there was an end to that fury. Clouds parted. Stars shone serene in the sky. Still they were together on the ledge above a now quiet Mirror. And they were awed and small before a power far greater than they could imagine.
"We have much to learn." Jarvas who had been Pate Sissions spoke first.
"We have much to do." That was Torry, again Kelemark.
"It has not conquered—this time." Naill-Ayyar's hand was on his sword as he faced west.
He who had once been Monro and was now wholly Rizak smiled. "Nothing is ever too easy, if it is worth the winning—and the holding."
But Illylle smiled and hummed gently.
Naill-Ayyar knew that song; the words to fit the tune dropped into his mind one by one. It was very old—older than Iftcan, that song—for Iftcan's Tree Towers had been evoked and nourished from saplings by its singing. That was the Song of the First Planting.
"There shall be again a city." She broke the song to prophesy what they all knew in their hearts would come to pass. "And it shall rise where there was desolation. And the Oath shall be spoken once again. For the Iftin are replanted and the Nation shall grow—though the seeds were not of this world. There has been a judging and a judgment. We shall see a Fourth Leaf come into full greatness. But all growth is slow, and the way of the gardener is never without battle against destruction from without." She began to sing again—the song which was only for the Mistresses of the Planting. They listened to her almost greedily.
She walked ahead, began to descend the stairway leading to the plain and the night. Behind they followed eagerly.