It continued to stand there, facing east, if such a thing had a face to turn east, west, any direction. Danger might lie in awaking Naill memory consciously, but Ayyar was forced to that in order to learn the nature of the Enemy. He told Illylle his plan and what might come of it.
"But that—I have Ashla's memory, and nothing such as that walks through it!"
"Garth memories do not know off-world well," he pointed out. "For years I was in the Dipple on Korwar. Prison though that was, still we had contact with half the galaxy. Korwar is a pleasure planet, save for those condemned to be planetless and so to live within the waste heap of the Dipple. Now and then I had a day's labor at the port and we saw there many strange things. And this—this moves deep in my memory. What we can learn now, anything we may learn, must be to our advantage. But if awaking Naill brings me into a trap set for off-worlders, then do you be ready for it—"
She smiled. "I do not truly believe that one who has been washed in the substance of Thanth can be so taken. But, I shall be ready—for what, Ayyar? To thrust a sword through you?"
He gazed at her with full soberness. "If I were to become such as those who marched through here—then, yes, I would welcome such death at the hands of a friend."
Illylle's smile vanished. "You do not jest. Do you wish to have me swear?"
"There is no need. Only, if I strive to move from here, then do what you must to stop me, at any cost."
He fixed his gaze upon that thing. There appeared no division between head and body, if head and body were terms which could be applied to a rectangular box supported on two stilt legs, two arms or like appendages dangling by its side. It was difficult for even his night-oriented eyes to see it clearly for the storm distorted it. A box on legs. Now that he studied it, he could also make out a series of small sparks of light set in a row across the section comparable to the breast. Also, he was very sure, it was metal, or metal encased. And he had seen its like. Where, when?
Naill Renfro—deliberately he set about recalling Naill Renfro— What were Naill's first memories, so deeply buried that they must be mined with effort bit by bit?
His father's ship—he made himself visualize it, cabin and corridor, his own small cubicle which was the only true home he had ever known. Captain Duan Renfro, Free Trader, and Malani, the wife he had brought from a warm, smiling planet of shallow seas, many islands, endless, gentle summer. The worlds they had visited—then the end with their spacer caught in a battle that was none of their war—Malani and Naill in the escape boat—picked up and brought to Korwar—and the endless gray life-in-death of the Dipple, the dumping place for those displaced by the war with no worlds to return to.
The ship—resolutely Naill-Ayyar turned memory back to the ship, combing it by recall. Nothing like that thing above had been in the ship. Then, on some world where they had gone trading. But that was hopeless. His faded mental pictures of those were past disentangling now. So—the Dipple was all that was left.
Not in the collection of barracks itself—then in the city—or the port. He settled for the port. There had been wide landing aprons on which set down fleets of very differing spacers—traders bringing luxuries from a thousand worlds, passenger liners, private yachts of rulers and the wealthy. They reeled through his mind until— He caught upon one of these fragmentary memories, strove to pin it down. Yes!
A long bank of computers—he had seen that in the heart of a liner. The ship had been put in quarantine because of a new illness detected aboard. But laborers from the Dipple, hungry for the work, had been sent through a blocked-off passage to bring out some highly important sealed cargo. He had looked into the computer room as he passed, and just such a robot had stood there. It was a service type, meant to deal with computer repair—more than that he did not know.
What was it doing here? The best thing to do would be to follow it—for it must return soon. He was needed—it was most necessary to join the others. What was he doing here in the storm and rain when he was needed, greatly needed? He must be going—
"Ayyar!" A hold on him kept him from rising, from going as he should go. Angrily he strove to break that grip. He was Naill Renfro and he had that which he must do—now!
Look, the robot was turning—leaving— Unless he followed he would be lost! He would never find the others, be one with them as he should be!
"Ayyar!"
Desperately he pulled against the hold. Then something flashed before his eyes, its brightness blinding, searing. Now he was in the dark where there was no Naill—nothing—
"Ayyar!" Very faint and far away that calling. Why should he answer it? To make any effort was too much to demand of him.
"Ayyar!"
The calling would not let him be, pursued him, herded him up, out once more into the world. Very reluctantly he opened his eyes to look into a green-skinned face, into slanting eyes that held concern. Malani? No, Illylle! Slowly, painfully his mind matched a name to that face.
That was Illylle and he was Ayyar—Ayyar of the Iftin. And they were in a shelter between the rocks of the Enemy's Waste while about them the storm raged and from above—
He struggled to sit up though the girl's hands on his shoulders pinned him back with all the strength she could muster.
"It is all right. I am Ayyar—"
She must have read the truth in his eyes for she released him so that he could move, look to where the robot had rested. It was gone and he was not surprised. Had it been spying upon them? What was its function in the Enemy's service, for that it belonged in the ranks of That he did not doubt.
"It went—that way." Illylle pointed west. "Do you know now—what it is?"
"Very little. I saw its like once—long ago and on another planet—in the computer cabin of a liner. It is some form of service robot, though its real function I do not know."
"But what does it here?"
"Be sure, nothing to our advantage."
As Naill he had thought to use the thing as a guide. As Ayyar he must also do that, and the prospect of such a journey was not easy to think about.
"Come!" At least the storm was slackening, and he felt they dared not lose track of the robot.
They scrambled out of the crevice, winding their cloaks about their heads and shoulders. Rivers ran down the gullies, but the robot kept to the heights, moving as if it were programmed for some independent activity.
Perhaps more than one spacecraft had in the past landed in the Waste to be used by That. They had found one on their first escape, an older type of trader like those Naill had known. But what if there had been more complex vessels, even a liner?
There was a crackle in the air, a blinding burst of light. Illylle cried out, stumbled against her companion. Ayyar rubbed his eyes, striving to wipe away blindness, unable to go on in a black world. Through his body ran again a hot tingling such as he had felt when the tongue from the Mirror had touched him.
Half blind, Ayyar supported the girl, peering about him. There was continued brightness from behind; he dared not turn to face it. Some instinct for preservation sent him staggering to a rock outcrop, dragging Illylle with him.
"What was it? I am blind! Blind!" Her assurance was gone; she clung to him with both hands, her shivering body pressed close to his for comfort.
"That may be temporary," he told her. "Close your eyes, wait. I do not know what it was, but there is now a bright light behind us. If we go forward we must keep to cover."
"Blind I cannot go," Illylle said. "If you can see you must leave me—you must!"
"I, too, cannot see—very much," which was not altogether a lie. This weakness of their Iftin bodies might defeat them yet. "We must wait, hope it will pass."
During that waiting, Illylle's hold on his arm was tight and painful. She said nothing after her outburst, and he did not dare to ask if she had any glimmer of returning sight. His own was clearing, but very slowly. And over such broken ground they dared not venture, not when they must go with two kinds of caution, against a misstep, and in fear of being sighted by some guard of the Enemy.
The storm cleared. Whether it was still night or day Ayyar could not have told. But around the rock against which they crouched still streamed the light from the east, making a fan that was shadowed by break of gully, rise of rock. Seeing that Ayyar knew that his sight had cleared. He spoke softly to Illylle:
"What can you see now?"
Her eyes had been closed. Now she opened them, blinked, and her fingers dug into his flesh. "Some—a little—but all is blurred. Ayyar, what if—?"
"If you can see some, then it is clearing," he hastened to assure her, hoping he spoke the truth. "Do you see enough for us to go on?"
If Illylle's sight cleared no more, then he must find a better hiding place for them both and soon. Who knew what might roam this land? A cave, a place in some gully where one man with a sword could bar the entrance—that was what they needed. Yet he dared not go to seek it. They must stay together.
"Guide me." She spoke with determination, her will plainly in control. "Guide me and let us go."
So began the worst of their journey, taken with many pauses as from the shadow of each bit of cover Ayyar studied the way ahead for the quickest and easiest route to another. Long since, he had surrendered his hope of tracing the robot. Their only direction was west, and they took it in a weaving pattern, zigzag.
"Any better?" he asked at what might be their tenth halt.
"Only a little, a very little."
He hoped she spoke the truth, was not saying that for his encouragement. So far, he had found them no place for a refuge. They rounded a wall of rock and Ayyar saw glitter ahead. It was not as brilliant as the beam at their back, but it warned them of danger. He put on his leaf goggles, helped Illylle to don hers. That reduced the glitter, but Illylle stumbled even more.
"What can it be?" she asked.
"There is one thing—the White Forest."
The crystal trees, certainly those would pick up light from the east, produce just such points of glitter. And the White Forest, if it did not guard the heart of That's domain, must lie very close to it. Could they penetrate the Forest without a guide? They had come out of it once because the alignment of the branches, always straight-angled from the prism trunks, had given them a check upon their direction. But into it they had gone as prisoners guided by the walking space suit.
"There is the wood—" Illylle said longingly.
Yes, the wood, that spot of green life that lay in the Enemy's own country, that had kept alive the Iftin captives. But that lay at the bottom of a chasm and down the stairway which led to it— Ayyar knew that they could never descend that steep way now.
"Come—"
He led her on. The glitter became more intense, but still there was something odd about it. The trees Ayyar remembered had stood tall and straight. This light lay close to ground level. And when their painful crawl brought them still closer, he saw what did face them—a truly insurmountable barrier. For those tall trees were now broken shards, splintered and riven, covering the ground in heaps to cut to rags anything venturing in among their ruins. So must the fury of the Mirror have wrought when it had unleashed that storm months ago. And That had either not been able to, or had not wished to—repair the wreckage.
"All broken—" Illylle looked at what lay before them. "We—there is no way through that!"
"None." So much they had lost when the robot outdistanced them. There was nothing left for them to do but cast along the edge of the shattered Forest seeking some refuge. Let the sun rise, strike those pieces—they could not face such reflected light, even if their lives depended upon it. Which well they might.
North or south? North lay the Mirror and the way they had once fled this place. South was unknown land. And was That watching? South Ayyar turned now, guiding Illylle, searching for any hint of refuge. They could not hope for clouds and storm a second day.
"Ayyar!" The girl's head was up; she was sniffing.
But what scented the air was not the stench of false Iftin, nor of any of the creatures of That. It was cool and clean, and it spoke of real growth and life. But here—in this desert—?
"That way!" She swung her head to the left. "Oh, hurry! Hurry!"
But before them lay the murderous shards of crystal, and Ayyar held her back. He was not sure he could pick a free path through without knowing how far they must travel, nor what lay beyond.
"This way is dangerous—" he began.
"That it is not!" she returned emphatically. "We must find—"
To take that way demanded such an agony of concentration from Ayyar that he held to his strength of purpose only by great effort. Illylle came behind him, heeding his words as to where to set her feet. Time and time again he had to set aside, with infinite care against slitting his hands, a jagged splinter too large to avoid. Yet to encourage them always was that scent of free earth and growing things.
"Growing things?" wondered one part of Ayyar's mind. This was winter; there should be no green here—anywhere. Another trap of That with bait no Ift could resist once he had journeyed through the Waste? No, that was one thing which That could not produce by Its will—a counterfeit of true life real enough to deceive the Forest dwellers.
There was a lighting of the sky, or was it intensified radiance from the east? In either case it turned the crystal into a fire about them. Illylle's hold upon him tightened again, and Ayyar knew without any voiced complaint that her eyes suffered from the glare. How much longer—?
The shards vanished, pulverized in two beaten tracks, ground down to pave a roadway. Ayyar was tempted to turn into that road, to follow it. But the scent lay ahead. He looked up and down that road. On it nothing moved—yet—
"On!" Illylle pulled at him. "Let us go—"
They crossed that open space and then passed, while Ayyar closed the way behind them with chunks of crystal. Wytes hunted by scent, but other patrolling sentries here might only scout by eye. Luckily, on this side of the beaten road the wreckage of the Forest was thinner.
Then there was a dip in the ground, and they looked down into greenery. Illylle loosened her grip on Ayyar—held out her hands.
"Tell me true," she whispered, "oh, tell me true—are those trees?"
They were not Forest giants. In fact they were far removed from the growth of Iftcan. But that they were trees and bore leaves in winter, he could not deny, though why they grew in the midst of territory which belonged to That, he could not guess.
Illylle turned her head. Her leaf goggles effectively masked her eyes and the greater portion of her face, but her mouth smiled as he had not seen it do in days.
"Do you not understand? That could not grow Its own works without the force of true growth somewhere to draw upon. There must always be a seed, even if what is drawn out of it is unnatural. This is the seed from which the Enemy's White Forest grew, the energy on which it fed when it was small. But because that was false, it died when the Wrath of Thanth touched it. But the true seed was nourished, not slain in that hour. Nor, having once used it so, could That destroy it."
Where she got that knowledge Ayyar did not know, nor even if it was true, though he knew that she believed it so. However, there was no denying this refuge of green in the midst of a desert of death, and they needed it as a man dying of hunger and thirst needs food and drink. So, with only the remnants of caution acting as a brake upon their need and their eagerness, they went down to be swallowed up in the shade of leaf and bough. Illylle dropped, to lie upon her back, her arms outspread, her fingers digging deep into the rich earth as if they were now rootlets to sustain and feed her.
Food—drink— Ayyar leaned his back against a tree trunk, and nothing he could now remember had ever felt as good as the toughness of that rough bark. He had known the need for neither since he had left the Mirror, nor did he now. The scent, the sounds, the feel of the wood were enough to renew his strength, his confidence—
"That road"—he began thinking aloud—"that must be the way the off-worlders and the machines passed. But any Ift on it—unless a false one—"
"Ahhhh—" She sighed. "Here it is difficult to think. One must give oneself up to feeling, just to being—"
Ayyar was tempted even as she, but that inheritance from the Ayyar who had been Captain of the First Ring, a warrior in a desperate lost war, was his conscience now. They could believe welcome of this wood, surrender themselves to its healing, and be lost to the mission that had brought them here. No, somehow the road must provide them— Ayyar's thoughts hesitated, changed direction. This was a safe place in which he could leave Illylle! He did not know how far her eyes had recovered, but he suspected that now he must act without any responsibility for another. If he scouted along the road, he must do it alone, fortified by the belief that she was safe.
How to tell her? She was moving, bracing herself up on her arms. Some of the contentment was gone from her face, a shadow veiled the brightness.
"How well can you see?"
She sat upright; her hands came slowly, plainly unwillingly, to the leaf goggles. She took them off, turned her head from left to right, her lower lip caught childishly between her teeth.
"It is dim, still dim."
"Then you shall stay here for the present—"
"But we were both chosen to carry—"
"I do not say," he compromised, "that in the end we shall not both go. But first I must scout the road ahead—"
"In the day? Even my poor eyes can mark that." She pointed to a sun finger creeping into their green nest. "With the broken Forest to make the glare a hundredfold worse?"
"Be sure I will not move in folly. I would but see the road and if aught travels it by day. If I find the sun too great a torment, I shall return."
He put on his goggles and reclimbed the hill from the clean green into the hard glare of the Waste. The sun was up above the horizon, but as yet it did not pierce too keenly into the places where he crept, careful of every move, lest he cut hand, foot, or body on the jagged bits of the ruined trees.
He heard crunching sounds and pushed forward, lying in a small space between two piles of rubble. And he had been not a moment too soon in his coming, for there was travel on the road. Ayyar was past surprise at anything he saw here. Also this newcomer he knew of old. A space suit, its face plate fogged so that none knew what was within, or if anything was, stumped stolidly along headed east.
Ayyar lay very still. Once before, that thing or its twin had found and taken them captive, using the off-world weapons clamped to its belt. Was it coming to round them up a second time? He waited fatalistically to see it turn aside from the road, come clumping to his hiding place. So sure was he that this would happen that he blinked after it in disbelief as it continued along the track.
Then to his amazement, a second such apparition appeared. Space suit? He thought so. But the proportions of this had never been designed to fit a form of humanoid build. It was short, squat, abnormally broad across the n the small skiff at the water's edge they settled him and paddled out to the opening in that log. He could not climb in; they had to use a sling to bring him in.
He tried to whisper, but they would not pause to listen. Instead they carried him down a wood-walled passage and into a cabin, which was like unto one of Iftsiga's chambers. Its comfort closed about him as a cloak might shelter one against the bitterness of a storm wind. So he sighed with relief as they laid him on a bunk.
Then Kelemark bent over him, and there was a time of darkness, which was good, which he welcomed, pushing aside thought—
Illylle? Into that warm dark came first the saying of a name, and Ayyar stirred unhappily, reluctant to acknowledge the need to answer. He tasted sweet warmth, healing his dry mouth, his aching throat as he swallowed. Through his body spread new energy and well-being. It was as if he again quaffed Iftsiga's blood.
"What of Illylle?"
Ayyar opened his eyes. Jarvas stood by his side, his eyes intent and searching, as if he could see into Ayyar's skull, bring out the answer to his question.
"She lies in hiding—I could not wake her," he replied. "It was thus—"
Once launched into his story, the words came easily. Ayyar discovered that he could build pictures for the others' seeing, beginning with the journey from the Mirror into the Waste. He told of their finding the true wood within the Enemy's territory and how they sheltered there. Of Illylle's giving to him that which had been set in her by the power of the Mirror, of his journey in the suit, and of what else he had learned in the burrows.
He was aware as he spoke that others gathered behind Jarvas, listening to his words. But it was to the Mirrormaster that he told this tale, for to him in that company Jarvas was the leader.
When he described the mirror patterns and their use, the evil wood of illusion, the false tree and the company under its roots, Ayyar heard their quickened breathing. Then he was interrupted for the first time. One who was behind Jarvas spoke, and his tone carried authority.
"This company of Larsh—tell us again of them—"
Ayyar was impatient, eager to finish his report. But he reacted to the note of command and once again described the silent line of the Enemy's servants, beginning with the bestial Larsh, ending with the space-suited figure of one who was wholly man.
"And these, you say, stood in reverse order to the company of the Iftin, beginning with the Larsh, ending with true man, while an Ift of the final days faced the Larsh?"
Ayyar nodded. Jarvas turned his head to ask of the questioner:
"You believe that this has some special meaning, Olyron?"
"It might. And what was beyond that, Ayyar?"
He continued with the room of the machines, of how his sword had unlocked the lower passage, of the place of stored mirrors. Again he heard the quickened breathing of those who listened.
On he continued to the stairwell, which was closed past his power to open. And now Jarvas asked:
"Are you sure that what you were sent to seek lay below?"
Ayyar did not doubt that in the least or that skill beyond his must be applied to draw that cork of slagged metal. He told them the rest—his fight with the false Ift, the coming of the garthwomen and children, his return to Illylle, and finally his sight of Amper in the Waste. When he spoke of that, he heard them stir uneasily.
Once his story was told, weariness again descended upon him. Kelemark must have sensed that, for he offered a wooden cup, and what it contained was tree sap, spring sweet, to clear his mind and wash away his fatigue.
"So—" Some of the company had gone, but Kelemark, Jarvas, and the man called Olyron remained. It was the latter who spoke. "So, it would seem that the task yet remains to be done." His tone was bleak, and Ayyar read into it criticism of the tool that had been chosen by the Mirror and then failed in action. And he regarded Olyron with answering coolness. But Jarvas smiled, if fleetingly, with a warmth for Ayyar.
"We know much more. And we cannot hope to win a war with a single small skirmish. Tell me, Olyron, who of those with us now holds in his other memory a knowledge of tools or procedure such as would clear that plug for us?"
Ayyar sat up and cautiously swung his wounded leg around. He found it stiff, but only a small ache remained, and there was already a scab formed, no need for bandage.
"To use off-world memory there," he pointed out, "is to come under That's control."
"Then a memory of a memory, perhaps," Jarvas returned. "A memory recalled, given to another who will use it second-hand and not be caught in the web of his own pre-Ift self. Possible, Olyron?"
The other nodded. "It might be. This—this has such tangled roots that it is hard to trace any one stem from their supporting. I feel deeply that the line of Larsh has meaning for us—if we could only read it! And these mirrors that can pattern a man, then build a robot from his image—store it as you saw in the cavern— An Ift you once knew— So do they remain or only the mirrors? We follow a force that reaches us through a Mirror—yet that is a Mirror of water that lives and even wars upon occasions, while these reflectors slay or imprison."
Jarvas looked beyond them—to the wood wall of the cabin. "Tolhron," he said softly.
"Place of sorrow and of fasting,
Of evil everlasting.
Chained are they who lie on Tolhron
By the blood and by the bone
Of those who set the spell
Delving deep into the well
Wherein all nothingness doth dwell—"
Ayyar saw that Kelemark and Olyron were as much at a loss as he to interpret Jarvas' chant.
Then Jarvas laughed shortly. "Memory again. That is an old tale, one for children, concerning a master of wayward arts who set up a place wherein he kept captives. And they could not be freed because the floor of his prison was mixed with blood and bone over which he had evil control, so that only when similar blood and bone were brought there might the prisoners be freed. I do not know why this rises to mind now."
"There was in this story some connection between this Tolhron and That?" asked Kelemark.
"Not that I can remember."
"In many legends there lies a grain of true history," Olyron commented. "And the fact that it comes to your mind now— If only we knew more of the Oath of Kymon! But your idea of shared memory has merit. You are sure you can find the right mound again?" he demanded of Ayyar.
"I made as sure of that as I could. And Illylle?" He turned to Jarvas.
"She can be brought here. Then, I believe, we can restore her. Two parties, one to rescue her, one to go to the mound—"
"Why not one, picking her up on their return?" Olyron wanted to know.
"Because that one might not return!" Ayyar slipped from the bunk, stood up, one hand braced on the wall. They did not try to hinder him.
Olyron went to the door. "I will ask for any memory that can aid us."
"And what if he cannot find such?" Ayyar perversely saw all the stumbling blocks in their path.
"Then we shall have to do the best we can without—" Jarvas began when Kelemark interrupted him.
"There are tools, all we might need—at the port—"
"A second choice, though whether we could use them is another matter," Jarvas pointed out. Would their revulsion hinder that?
"Illylle had me rub the interior of the suit with leaves. I could bear to wear it then," Ayyar said.
"A good thing to keep in mind. We have substances here that might serve as well," Kelemark replied briskly. "Suppose I collect a few. We have not tried that before." He, too, left them.
Jarvas was staring at the wall again, past Ayyar as if he were now invisible. Tolhron or some kindred half memory again? If they did not have to depend upon such broken patches of Iftin history, they would be better armed.
"It is there—or here—" Jarvas held out his hand palm up and curled the fingers slowly inward as if he would clasp something tight and hold it so. "There is an answer before us in what you have seen, but I cannot discover it! If and if and if—! Are we always to be haunted by ifs?"