For the fourth time in his life as a reborn Ift, Ayyar stood on that ledge overhanging the Mirror of Thanth. Each time the lake had been different—the first time when he and Illylle had come that way it had awed him, making him wish to creep quietly away, lest he disturb the meditation of something far greater than his imagination, human or Ift, could encompass. Then, the second time, when they had all fled to Thanth as they would to the last refuge left on a hostile world, it had been a cup of rising power, again awing them, yet with that which had sustained them through the fury that followed.
This time he might be looking down, not at a flood of water, silent, untroubled, fathomless, but rather into a mist that writhed and billowed and was, he was sure, a substance not of Janus nor any world his kind knew. And there was no welcome, no security, only restless tossing and—not fear, no—but an uneasiness, a tensing, as if before battle.
Even Illylle who had climbed here light of foot, as one who expected communication, halted self-consciously and stood at a loss with the rest. Jarvas had not turned his head to greet them as they advanced on the ledge. He stood there, statue still, his arms at his sides, his whole stance that of one who waited, and waited, and waited—
It was Illylle who moved first, joining Jarvas. Perhaps she did remember more, perhaps she was daring to improvise now because of their need. Both thoughts came to Ayyar as she raised her arms, held out her hands, palms up, as one who asks alms.
Words she chanted. Some he knew, others were of the Hidden Speech, sounds to evoke answers from powers beyond their ken.
Up from the Mirror came a mist, not a surging as it had been when the water overflowed. It formed a tongue to lick down the presumptuous, to wipe out those who would demand an answer. All fear Ayyar held in memory from both his lives was as nothing to what he knew now. For the fear one holds for an enemy is naught to the fear which comes when that which one believes to be a strong protector turns against one, and there is no refuge left.
Yet none of them broke and fled that ledge as the tongue of fear swept closer to them. And now Jarvas chanted also, as if Illylle's words had unlocked his own past priesthood.
The tongue did not lick them from the stone as Ayyar thought it might. It curled higher in the air, menaced—but it did not strike. And then Illylle moved her hands as one who sows seed, and the tongue began to swing in the same way, following her gestures. While from Ayyar fear passed, leaving only awe. They were accepted. In the midst of a great and abiding anger such as his kind could not measure, the force that found focus in Thanth recognized and accepted them.
The tongue of mist withdrew, and they were alone. But a chill which was not of winter was about them. Shivering, Illylle spoke though she did not look to them, staring instead into the Mirror.
"I have said—we are ready. Now we must wait to see what task shall be laid upon us."
What is time? In the life of men a numbering of sunrises and sunsets, of days, years, seasons, plantings and reapings. Man makes times, dividing it into narrower and narrower portions as he needs it for living which becomes more and more complex in its demands. Naill Renfro was space born; thus time had not laid so tight a bond upon him as upon most other men. And when he had become Ayyar he had walked into a time that was reckoned by seasons, by growth and winter sleep. Now he was caught up in another time in which his body was nothing, in which he was only to wait. And how long was this time he could not afterwards have told, nor did he remember it clearly.
There came a moment when the mist below lay quiet, collapsed into water. But now the water was not a smooth, set mirror. Through it ran ripples of blue and green which thinned and paled into silver, and these formed lines and patterns which were not normal for any water, if the Mirror of Thanth was, or had ever been, mere water.
Illylle and Jarvas chanted together—the girl's lighter voice rising, the man's making a lower, stronger note, yet both fitting, one to the other. And again the words were not to be translated but were meant to be sounds in which the meaning lay only in the melody.
The silver lines moved back and forth, tracing the fantastic pictures one could almost understand, but never entirely. Now the whole of the flood lapped higher about the walls of the crater, as it had on the day when it had spilled over to cleanse the wilderness about and to challenge That with storm and flood.
From it arose another tongue, this not of mist but of substance, lifting higher and higher into the air as it circled the wall, thinner and thinner, until it could have been a vine of the Forest. And into that writhing, curling vine of water poured all the silver, so that it was alight throughout its length, although the gleaming brilliance of it did not strike harshly on Iftin eyes.
It approached in its round the ledge on which the Iftin stood, and its tip was star bright, curling down over their heads. It quivered, swinging back and forth, lingered for a moment above each in turn, sometimes for only a second, sometimes longer. Twice did it so quest, and then it struck at Illylle. Down over her head and body ran the coruscating silver, beading shoulders, limbs—
Then it raised again, and once more swung out over the rest of their small company, seeking—seeking—
Ayyar started. He was the target this time. He did not feel the touch of the water as it chose him, rather a tingling through flesh and bone and blood, as if the silver flood had entered into him. Then that was gone, as was the tongue itself, fallen back into the Mirror.
And the turbulence of the Mirror died away so that they looked down into a calm surface. Ayyar knew that what had dwelt there for a space had now withdrawn into the place which was its own, and that a door between was closed.
But the reason for what had just passed was what he must know. He looked down at his arms, his shoulders, his body where that river of silver had run. He was warm, and the hunger, the thirst he had known, was gone. Instead he was alive as he had been after his draught of sap, filled with energy, with the need for action. But what action? In the answer to that lay the importance of all that had happened here.
Illylle turned away from the edge of the ledge and came to him.
"Thus has it been ordained. As it was with Kymon, the Oath Giver, so is it now with us. We go to where That abides, that we may be the vessels through which what lies in Thanth may loose wrath upon the Enemy."
And the choice had not been his at all, was Ayyar's first thought. No, that was not the truth either. By coming here he had indeed offered himself for battle. Now he could not protest when he had been accepted. But why? He was no Mirrormaster; he was only a warrior who had once fought in a lost cause against this same Enemy. But—Kymon also had been a warrior—if Kymon ever truly was, inside the wrapping of legend and hero worship. And there was no denying that the choice had been made.
He turned to Illylle. "We go now—?"
"Now."
"Take this." Kelemark drew off his baldric, pushed it and the sheathed sword it supported into Ayyar's hands. It would seem the others accepted the fact of their out-faring.
Jarvas drew his cloak closer about his shoulders. "What can be done here is done. We must not linger."
"Then where?" asked Illylle.
"To the bay at the shore, if fortune allows us to win there. If the brothren come overseas we shall meet them." He paused and looked for a time-stretching moment into her eyes and then into Ayyar's.
"I know not what you face, save that it is peril indeed. And one which none can share with you, no matter how much they wish it. What good fortune may come from willing and from our desires shall march to your right and left, but whether that can arm or defend you"—he shrugged. "Can any man tell? This has been laid upon you to do—the best with it—and you!"
They crossed into the Waste where the road walls were waist high. Day sky was above but there were clouds; by so much did the weather favor them. But—where were they to go? Venture without plan into That's stronghold?
"Where we go, that I can guess," Ayyar said. "But what we do there, that is another thing."
"We shall know that also when the hour is come," she replied.
Her confidence grated against his doubt. "To run blindly into That's hold is to perhaps throw away every defense we have."
Illylle looked at him over her shoulder. "Defense? Is it 'once a warrior, always a warrior,' Captain of the First Ring of Iftcan that was? There may be other ways of fighting than with blade—"
"Yes," he told her grimly, "with blaster and flamer! Have you forgotten what army has drawn ahead of us into this land? You say we are weapons in ourselves, carrying in us some potent force to meet that which the Enemy can muster. But it is in my mind that we must do as the songs says Kymon did, win directly to That, face to face. And in so doing we must pass any defenses It has set. Do you not remember how it was when that space suit took us so easily prisoner? And that may be the least of the dangers now ranged against us."
"So, what then is your answer? We have no time to creep and lurk, seeking out some unknown safe path—"
"Can we not? I say we have to or be finished before we are fairly begun. This is no Forest hunt, this is in a land the Enemy has made. There is one way—" He had been thinking, fast, clearly, more clearly, it seemed, than he had for some time.
"And what way is that?" she demanded. Already she had pulled well ahead of him on into the Waste, her impatience a goad.
"Does not the Enemy have the false Iftin? Are they not to the eye even as we?"
He had caught her attention. She looked back at him, a frown on her face.
"The false Iftin—but how—?"
"They are sent out to raid from whatever camp That keeps. They come and go—if we can track a returning pack, join it as stragglers—"
"They do not live as we, cannot That detect the difference?"
"We must take our chances. But they are no more, and they may be less than the perils we may encounter going blindly. There is no reason not to try this."
"And where will you find them?"
"They have been raiding across the river. Lokatath was with those who pursued them, garthmen caught in turn by the compelling of That. Therefore, if we strike southwest we may cross their trail."
Her frown deepened. "It is not good to waste time for something so uncertain."
"For us all the future is uncertain. But, in this, accept warrior wisdom, Sower of the Seed. One does not run blindly into a kalcrok's den because of a need for haste. And to my mind it is better to enter into That's city by our will, rather than Its, if that may be."
She yielded to his arguments, but reluctantly, and they went south, still also to the west. The day remained overcast, clouds serving them by so much. Ayyar remembered those glittering points he had sighted from the road, but they came upon nothing that could have given off those flashes. Finally they crossed the deep-rutted tracks which were the trail of That's captives.
Ayyar watched the sky, fearing to sight one of the flying servants. But so far they appeared to move through a deserted land. At last he asked:
"Do you know what we must do when, or if, we reach That?"
"This only do I know, that we are in the service of the Mirror. It is my hope that when we reach that last moment we shall be moved in a pattern that will serve for good."
Tradition granted Kymon more knowledge of his battle. If he had been merely a tool to carry one force to face another, legend did not say it. But legends were the shadows, not the mirrors of truth. And it might well have been that the hero of the White Forest had walked even as they, uncertain and unenlightened.
Ayyar's nostrils took in a new scent. Ah, in so much he had guessed rightly. False Iftin had passed. With wytes or alone? The answer to that might make a wide difference to any would-be trailer.
"They—" Illylle's voice was a half-whisper. Ayyar nodded, signaled her to silence.
A little more to the west—yes, the scent grew stronger, almost a thick reek! But which way had they gone—eastward-traveling raiders would not serve their purpose. He slid cautiously around a rocky outcrop, saw narrow boot prints in the soil—west! Again he signed to Illylle and looked ahead with a scout's eye.
Here the Waste was cut by gullies, with curiously shaped stone outcrops on guard along their rims or at their mouths. It would seem that time and weather erosion alone could not have sculptured those grotesque boulders, that some purposeful hand had pointed up the suggestion of a demonic face or beast. This was a land that had nothing in common with the Forest. It might have been on another planet altogether.
The soil underfoot was not quite sand, but it was barren of plants save for where, here and there, some bunch of long dead roots protruded from the side of a small rise in a way that made them seem to be clutching, misshapen tentacles. And here and there, uncovered by the wind, were patches of ground very hard and dark, so encrusted that a stone falling upon them gave forth a metallic ring. Ayyar was reminded of the scars left by thruster blast on space fields. But these patches were too small, too scattered, to be the marks of some ancient port, whatever strange activity they stood monument to.
A red thing with a scaled body surveyed them with bubble eyes set high on its narrow head and then skittered away between two stones. Ayyar watched it go suspiciously. He feared that all life here could in some way report to the ruler of the Waste, make known the passing of any who were not servants of That. But on the other hand birds, beasts and scaled things had shared the Forest yet been apart from Iftcan and those who dwelt there.
"It is a wild thing only." Illylle must have guessed his thought.
"How can you be so sure?"
"Do not those who serve That give off the shadow of their master? Though it is well to suspect all within this land. I wonder—"
"Concerning what?"
"What do you propose to do when we see this quarry we now trail? False Iftin certainly will not accept us. And they will—"
Ayyar swept her back, holding her half imprisoned against the gully side with his body as he listened, sniffed the air. The reek of false Iftin was suddenly so nose-filling as to make him gag. They must be very close to those they sought, and he had better have a quick and efficacious answer to the question Illylle proposed. She squirmed around to face in the same direction, her body rigid against his. Then she spoke in the thinnest of whispers:
"Just beyond that projection—"
The wall of the gully thrust out here in a sharp promontory. Behind that was an excellent site for an ambush. Ayyar searched the face of the wall against which they stood. One of the bunches of dried roots stuck out there within grasping distance; with such aid he might be able to climb above. He pointed to the crest and Illylle's eyes narrowed as she measured the distance in turn. It all depended upon his ability to make that climb undetected. To spread himself against the wall as a clear target was not good to think about.
Illylle drew her sword. She gestured for Ayyar to stay where he was, but she need not have made that warning signal for surprise kept him still. Along the blade of the Iftin weapon, seemingly coming from the hand curled about its hilt, ran a series of sparkling ripples, silver as the questing finger of Thanth. Now the girl swung the weapon back and forth, its tip up-pointed. She did not turn her eyes from the sword, but her lips shaped a word:
"Go!"
Ayyar jumped and his hand closed about the roots. They held against the pull of his weight. Then his other hand dug deep into the soil, and he climbed. Belly down he crawled along the rim. Illylle leaned forward. Now and then her sword dropped its shimmering point, and to his eyes it appeared that she had to make a great effort to force it up again. What she did he could not guess, but at least he had won to this advantage without being a target for attack.
Now he could see the other side of the buttress. Green, hairless head, tall pointed ears, Iftin cloak outspread—and in its hands no sword—but a barreled object not unlike a blaster. And with, Ayyar did not in the least doubt, perhaps the same force as that off-world weapon.
The creature's head was held high, though it was not searching with its eyes the rim of the cut. Instead that head was shaking slowly from side to side, even as Illylle wove her blade. And its eyes stared blankly at the stone against which it crouched.
Ayyar freed his own sword, though what effect that might have against the metal under the robot's concealing "flesh" he did not know. Only, the moment the hilt was in his hand, the silver ripple he had seen on Illylle's blade dripped from his own fingers. Not memory, but some command deep within launched him into action. He raised the sword so that its point was aimed at the false Ift's head. Ripples spread down and down until it would seem that what made them must drip onto that green covered skull below. And with the ripples there was a drawing within him, a feeling that some inner strength of his own went surging along that conducting blade.
The false Ift jerked, raised high upon its toes, and then fell forward, its limbs loose. On the ground it continued to jerk at intervals but it made no move to rise. Ayyar slammed his sword back into the sheath, a little afraid of the weakening ebb.
In a last spasm the Ift raised a little from the ground, fell heavily back. Ayyar slid down not too far from it. When it no longer moved, he approached it cautiously. The barreled weapon had been released from its grip during that last convulsion and he stooped, would have picked it up, when Illylle's order came.
"No!"
She came slowly, one hand against the gully wall to support her. Now she added:
"You bear within you one power. Dare you deny that after this? You cannot take to yourself the weapon of another!"
There was something in what she said. He picked up a stone and brought it down on the weapon, smashing it to bits. It broke brittly which he had not foreseen. He then looked to the false Ift, bringing a larger rock to batter the head of that inert creature. The substance of which the skull was formed split. Inside were fused wires, slagged metal. Ayyar squatted on his heels to study the wreckage. Energy, some type of energy, had dripped from the sword in his hand to accomplish this! Yet with that stored within him he had felt no ill, suffered nothing.
"Do you not yet understand?" Illylle demanded. "You are the vessel to carry a force. But it must not be wasted. Now where do we go from here?"
"The same road—with care."
"It would seem we are going to be favored—unless they can sniff us out in turn. Look you above."
Those clouds that had kept the sun from troubling them were massing ever darker. Whether the turbulence coming was born from some machinations of the Mirror or not, they did not know, but that it promised them a concealing cloak was plain.
For a space they traveled the upper ridges of the gullies, crawling serpentwise when they would have been plain against the sky. If other false Iftin or their master had any knowledge of the finish of the one they had accounted for, they did not show it. But Ayyar was willing to proceed upon the assumption that that might be true.
Above the third valley they so avoided, they came upon the first sign that other protection against Iftin had been set up in the Waste. Only the dimming of the storm clouds saved them. Once they had been led captive through the White Forest—where trees of crystal mimicked the rich growth of true life—a dazzling reflection of the true world. Here was raised a pillar of that same crystal, mounted on a headland—to blind Iftin eyes with sun-reflected brilliance. Ayyar warily circled around it, being thus forced to lower levels. The chill of the storm was changing scents. He was not sure they could depend any longer upon their noses for warning.
Then the fury of the breaking storm drove them to any cover they could quickly find. Darkness Ift could face, but not such tearing winds, such buffeting of hail, such numbing sleet.
Together they crouched in a crevice, their cloaks drawn up so they might pull the corners over their heads, hiding their eyes as lightning leaped across a wild and riven sky. And to the wrath of the storm there seemed no end. Whether it was loosed by one power or the other, it had about it that which Ayyar deemed unnatural.
Illylle stirred. Her lips were very close to his ear, but he could hardly hear her words as she said:
"This will hide all trails—"
She was right. Perhaps when they could go on they must simply head west and—
She started; her arm dug into his side. But Ayyar had seen it also, illumined by a flash of lightning.
It had not been there when they had taken refuge, that he could swear to. Yet now it stood on the western wall as if as fixed as the crystal pillar.
Man—no. Nor Ift. But it had four limbs and it stood erect upon two of them. Memory stirred within him. Once he had known or seen its like. Where—and when?