There was a difference in the wood. Those sounds that had lulled Ayyar's suspicions were now stilled. The Iftin moved in silence, save for the noise made by their passing. Yet it was not a waiting silence, as if a trap beckoned them. Rather it was as if that which had animated this place had been turned off or withdrawn. And Ayyar commented on that to the others.
Jarvas steadied himself on a wide branch before making another leap. "Withdrawn?" he repeated thoughtfully. "As if, perhaps, there were a need for concentration elsewhere. But where?"
"At the door Drangar seeks to force?" suggested Lokatath.
"Perhaps. Yet I am not sure. That makes a bid for power, all power now. It is sending Its servants out, rather than massing them here for defense."
"All the more reason for us to hurry." Ayyar led the way up the slope. Already they were skirting the place where the poison vines hung heavy in the trees. He found himself listening, watching, for the false Vallylle. But if she still walked this evil wood, she did not seek their company. And, somewhat to his surprise, they reached the wall below the burrow mouth with no challenge from any creature of the Enemy. The passage down the cliff was still missing. But they did not hesitate to hack at the trees, trimming their spoil to make a crude ladder.
As they entered the burrow above, they hesitated, nostrils wide, eyes alert. Disgusting odors in plenty, or so they seemed to Ift, came out of the corridor. It was hard to identify any one smell. Jarvas spoke:
"Machines—"
"Chemicals," added Kelemark, sniffing.
"No false Iftin, I think," Lokatath began.
Rizak put his hand palm flat against the wall of the passage.
"Power flows here. This place is alive with energy."
Jarvas followed his example, then snatched back his hand as if the vibration were a searing burn for his flesh.
"The crystal panels," Ayyar warned. "I think they are alarms; we must avoid them."
As far as he could see the passage ahead by the wan light, it was empty. He slipped past Jarvas to lead again, dropping to his knees to pass the first pair of crystals.
"This is the room where they store the bodies," he said a little later, pausing by that door. Kelemark pushed past him and stood staring at the lines of containers.
"More—there are many more of them now filled," Ayyar whispered. "When I was here before, only four in this line were occupied—now all are completed!"
"Where do they make the mirrors?" demanded Jarvas.
Kelemark had gone to the nearest cylinder. He put his face very close to its surface, his hands cupped about his eyes. He shook his head. "It cannot be seen—"
"The mirrors—" pressed Jarvas.
Illylle! That sent Ayyar racing down the corridor. He had to force a curb on his reckless need to get her out of this place—if he still could.
"Let me see the place where they grow the robots!" Kelemark ordered as if he were now in command of the party. But Jarvas held up his hand:
"First the mirrors!"
Ayyar was cautious enough to halt before he passed any of the doors, listening, sniffing for trouble. So far there had been nothing, no stir of any space suit in action. Save for the feeling of life in the walls about them, the Iftin invaders might have been walking through halls as deserted as those leading from the false Great Crown.
They came into the place where he had witnessed the making of the reflections. The table there was unoccupied, nor were there now any mirrors on the wall! But there were suits—two of them.
Ayyar signaled caution. The suits were humanoid, yet not of a type he knew. One had an arm twisted and snapped off short a little below the shoulder plate. The ends of that break slagged into a blob of battered metal. The other lacked a helmet.
When neither of the metal cripples moved, Ayyar decided they were harmless. Rizak crossed warily to examine them. Once an astro-navigator on a spacer, his acquaintance with such aids to stellar voyaging was far greater than Ayyar's. But now he shook his head.
"Nothing such as these have I seen before."
Ayyar went to the table, bent his head, and sniffed long and hard. There was odor of garthman, undisguised, and of the port men. But not Ift—at least not so lately that it had not been completely overlaid with the effluvia of the others.
Yet Illylle must have been brought here. From the deserted mirror room Ayyar sped to the laboratory, where he had witnessed the growth of the false creatures. The stench was a blow in the face, but the tables here were also empty. No jelly bubbled on a mirror bed.
Kelemark sniffed deeply, in spite of the torture to his Ift senses.
"Some form of plasta flesh—proto base—" he reported.
There was that third room Ayyar remembered in which he had seen the false Ift body being fitted with wires, up corridor. There he went now, to find it empty.
"Where—?" He knew that Jarvas, the rest, could give him no better answers than his own mind could supply. Maybe—Ayyar's head swung sharply around—maybe not his mind but his nose!
There were other doors along the corridor, and from one of them—it must be from one of them—came that scent, so faint in this place of ugly odors, yet to be traced. Illylle—surely Illylle!
Sniffing, rejecting, sniffing, Ayyar prowled along. Illylle or Ift—but there were other smells, strong, piercing as a pain when he breathed them in. Garthpeople—here—here— Ayyar's head swung from side to side at two closed doors facing one another across the hall.
Illylle—Ift—to the right! His hands went to the door, strove to push it, first inward, and then to either right or left. But it was as immobile under his hands as if it had been sealed by slagging. Lokatath joined him, then the others, all with their nostrils distended as they followed that same faint scent.
"Locked," Jarvas decided.
"Wait!"
As if they could do anything else, Ayyar thought impatiently. Rizak ran back toward the chamber of the mirrors. Ayyar continued to push at that stubborn portal, but it only wore out his strength uselessly. If only that which the Mirror of Thanth had planted in him had not been so exhausted. Thanth!
He stopped his vain fight with the door and glanced at Jarvas. "You are Mirrormaster. What can be summoned now from Thanth to our aid?"
Jarvas stared back, almost as if that demand had come as a shock. Then he looked thoughtfully at the door. "If you no longer hold the power, there is naught Thanth can do—"
"No?" The Mirror had sent him here filled with the substance of its force. And Illylle had given him a double portion when she had sent him to fulfill their mission. He had failed at the fused stairway. Then the power had ebbed with every step of retreat from that failure. But now, cried Ayyar silently, I have returned. I am here to do whatever is needful to free Janus from this burden long laid upon her clean earth. I have not deserted the quest or fled battle. I have returned with fresh forces!
He closed his eyes, trying to visualize the ledge above the Mirror, the great sparkling tongue rising from its surface to touch upon Illylle and then him, choosing them as fit receptacles of whatever force did enter into Janus through Thanth. He did not know that he had drawn his sword, that its point rested on the floor of the corridor between his firmly planted feet, that his two hands were clasped on its hilt.
In those moments when he had stood before the Mirror and watched it in action, he had known awe, belief in something beyond his powers to understand or explain. How much of that was inherited from the Ayyar who had been he did not know, nor even if that belief itself was so strong in him once he was removed from the Mirror where the united worship of the others had been a part of what he had seen and felt.
The Mirror, that reaching finger or tongue of sparkling water that had risen from it—Ayyar tried to will to life that tingling which had coursed through him.
He was out—no longer in his body—but in a space like unto that where he had sat across the game table from that other presence, he had never seen, save that this space was not the same, nor was the presence he sensed now—in any way.
"Green the growth, deep the seed.
Stand high a Tree, to Iftin need.
Sweet the wind, soft the rain—
Rich the soil, without bane—"
Green growing about his feet, up and up, he did not have to see those plants. They were a part of him, like his blood, his flesh, and the bones beneath them were a part. As if he, too, put roots into the soil, drew life and nourishment from it? Around him blew a wind as caressing as the dawn winds of summer, and on his cheeks, his lips, was the soft, refreshing touch of gentle rain, satisfying all thirst, all hunger.
"Straight the sword, sharp the blade.
Bright the leaf that does not fade.
Still the Mirror, wide and deep,
High the Moon that doth keep
Silver caught within the Mirror.
Stand here, Ift, without fear.
He could not see Thanth with the eyes of his body. But it was there—deep, dark, yet silver where it caught and held the moon. That moon's reflection shivered and broke into a thousand silver motes, free and floating. They arose and were one with the wind, the soft rain. So were they borne to him, gathering about his body—entering—
"Iftin sword, Iftin hand,
Iftin heart, Iftin kind!
Forged in the dark,
Cooled by the moon—"
That was the Lay of Kymon, Kymon who had walked the blazing white, searing paths of the Enemy, and returned therefrom with the Oath for the safety of his people. Ayyar did not sing that, the chant came from without and beyond.
"Borne by warrior who will stand—
When tree grows and That will fall.
Iftin swords, Iftin hands—
Come to save and cleanse a land!"
The sparkling silver touch of Thanth was once more within him. As he had before, he felt that strange life allied with his own, and he exalted in it. Ayyar opened his eyes to face Jarvas. And the Ift who had once been Mirrormaster and so able to call upon the power looked back with a depth of concentration, a willing. His lips moved as if he would speak, but at first he did not utter a sound. Then he said:
"Power has returned to you, brother."
"It has returned." Ayyar raised his sword with confidence and traced the outline of the door. A bright line followed the touch of that point, easing away the substance. Ayyar put out his hand, and the door fell away, back into the locked chamber, just as Rizak came up with a blaster from one of the suit belts in his hand. Jarvas waved him back, and they stepped into the room.
The occupants lay on the floor as if they had been struck down without warning—women, children, perhaps those Ayyar had seen enter the valley of the mounds—garthpeople all of them, yet his nose told him that among them was an Ift. They found her in a far corner, as if she had been flung there in haste, some broken machine for which That no longer had any use.
Jarvas gathered her up and carried her into the corridor, held her while Ayyar took her two limp hands into his. As she had willed her Mirror-born strength into him, so did he now return that with which he had been newly filled to her. And he heard them chanting softly:
"First the seed, then the seedling.
From the rooting to the growing.
Sap of trunk, stir of leaf,
Ift to Tree, Tree to Ift!"
Kelemark held a flask to her lips, dripping sap drops between them. Then Illylle opened her eyes and looked at them, at first in an unfocused stare, as if she still saw, not them and the burrows, but another place in which she had been long lost and wandering.
"Illylle!" Ayyar called gently, but yet as one arousing a comrade at the first alarm of battle.
Now she saw him, knew him, moved in Jarvas' hold. And her eyes were anxious.
"Do you not feel it?" her voice was strained and hoarse. "That knows!"
They glanced about them as if they were suddenly beleaguered by Enemy forces, for she was right. That silence, that lack of watchfulness, that emptiness through which they had come had vanished. They were now discovered.
"Come." Jarvas, his arm about Illylle in support, led them past all the other chambers. Ayyar saw Rizak and Lokatath drop behind, dart into the doors they passed. When they returned, they bore not only the blaster Rizak had already found, but also two more strange weapons, but clearly designed as arms.
All that time they listened for what might march upon them, watched for any sign of movement ahead or behind. But they reached the false wood aware only that That was conscious of them in the midst of Its own place. Ayyar wondered uneasily why the ruler of these burrows held off from attack, why It had not overwhelmed and crushed them as It might have so easily done, for, Mirror power or not, they could not stand up to the off-world weapons in Its arsenal.
There was a change in the place of the wood. That unaltering moon that had been such a relief to Ayyar's eyes on his first journey across that sinister jungle was gone. The dark was that of a stormy night. But in the dusk his bared sword gave forth a steady glow, and as they descended into the wood, the growth drew back and away from the brand, which it had not done before.
Illylle put forth her left hand and laid it on Ayyar's shoulder, saying:
"Link, brothers, link. I do not know why it may be, but in this hour that which speaks through the Mirror rises in all of us. Perhaps it may in turn draw upon the very forces here to feed. Link, one to the other, so that it may flow equally through us all!"
Her touch drew nothing out of Ayyar as he had thought that it might. Rather did there follow a new warmth and confidence. They did not take to the trees but went steadily ahead by the shortest path to that tree which aped the Great Ones with such evil travesty.
Things fled from their path or perhaps from the light of the brand, and once they heard a moaning call, like unto an Iftin voice, but with no words they could understand. Then did Illylle turn her head to that portion of the underbrush whence came the sound. And she chanted what could be an answer, a counterspell, or a warning. The words were not of the common speech, and Ayyar knew that they came to her out of the far past when Illylle had been a Sower of the Seed, thus one who dealt with the beginning of life and not its ending, while this place in which they walked negated life with counterfeit shadow and so was to be faced only by the real.
They continued without hindrance, though a part of Ayyar's mind continued to wonder and be alert for any sign of trouble, to the tree and into that place where stood the lines of Iftin and Larsh, frozen so for eternity.
As they passed between, Illylle and Jarvas, inspired by something Ayyar did not share, out of the old mysteries of which they had once been a part, turned their heads to certain of the Iftin and greeted them by name in such tones that Ayyar half expected those statues (if statues they were in truth) to step from that company and join theirs.
Next they went through the place of machines and down into the corridor that brought them to the vast room of mirrors. There for the first time Illylle faltered. She dropped her hold upon Ayyar and Jarvas, breaking their linkage, holding up her hands before her eyes as if she dared not look upon the racks, crying out:
"These are the children of That! Let them be shattered, and it will come to an end!"
Then, once more, her trembling hands came out to Jarvas and Ayyar, but she would not look upon the mirrors, shutting her eyes tightly, letting them guide her. And she did not cease trembling until they were out of the chamber.
For the first time they heard sounds—from behind and also ahead. They began to run to the place where they had left Drangar and Myrik. What came from there, Ayyar was sure, was the sound of battle. Of a sudden his sword blazed, yet the brightness did not hurt his eyes.
A tangle of wiring twisted and broken had been dragged from the service door into the corridor. And in the midst of that lay Drangar, dead, while, flattened to the floor, among the coils, was Myrik, pinned by beams that laced back and forth. As one, the others threw themselves down behind that tangle that was so poor a shield. Rizak and Jarvas had blasters and began a counter sweep.
Myrik raised his head. "The door—if we can get through—"
They had done well with the tools from the storage place. Ripped out were all the cables and fittings that had once filled the shaft. Ayyar hesitated to descend without knowing what might wait below—yet to remain here, pinned by those ahead, hunted by what moved from behind—
"I go!" Lokatath crawled to the opening, entered feet first, then sank from sight, but slowly, as if there was something in the way of hand and footholds within.
"You—" Ayyar pushed Illylle to that only promise of safety.
She did not protest, but went. And after her, Myrik, and Kelemark followed. Jarvas spoke to Ayyar—
"You!"
He and Rizak still replied to the beams of destruction with the counter rays from their weapons. And now there were lulls in that exchange of fire.
Sheathing his sword, Ayyar wriggled through the opening. The shaft was not as confining as he had expected, and torn-off projections of metal and wire gave him foot and hand supports. Then his feet touched more wires, and he had to work a passage through this obstruction, crawling on hands and knees into a corridor twin to that above. Those who had preceded him were alert and waiting. That force which enlivened the walls of the other portions of the burrows was here much greater. The whole of the space around them throbbed with it. When Ayyar ventured to touch the wall, energy ran painfully up his arm, so that he cried out. Instinctively his other hand had gone to his sword hilt. Now the scabbard that held the blade smoked until he snatched it forth from that covering.
The length of well-forged metal was blue and green, then both colors together, rippling, dripping sparks that vanished as they hit the floor. Ayyar was no longer sure that it was fed by the energy stored in his body or whether it now fed him. But he was not its master. No, now it was the wielder and he the weapon. Under the compulsion it wrought, he turned away from the rest of them and marched back down the corridor.
He expected to confront danger. He was not surprised nor, oddly enough, alarmed when things moved out of the gloom to intercept him. They came with a steady purpose to match his. And, without his willing it, his sword raised waist high, point outward. The force in it grew so strong that it jerked and quivered, so that the only way Ayyar could continue to hold it was to turn that movement into a swing, right and left.
They were armed, those thundering, stalking machines. There were beams that bit into the walls where they chanced to touch; there were other energies. But that waving, dancing sword set up a barrier of its own force to stop, to suck, to feed—for feed it did, and the backlash of that feeding was in Ayyar. Once he had been man, then Ift; now, thought a small part of him, he was a vessel of energy, alien to the place in which he walked in that he could draw upon the Enemy's strength to give fuel to his own.
The machines continued to attack until the light from the sword touched them. There were blazes of shorting wires, the acrid smell of destruction. He pushed past them, stepped over them, to advance.
How many did he meet in that corridor? Ayyar did not count; there was no need. In him was only the compulsion to move ahead, seek that will which lay behind the machines, behind this plague spot that sickened Janus.
The passage ended, and he stood in a great chamber, near its roof, he thought, with dark below. He was on a platform from which descended a curling stairway. Down that the sword pointed, and he must go. This whole place was charged with force, and Ayyar wondered dimly if he would end as Man or Ift, burned out by the weapon he bore, which yet had not been used as it must be. Round and round the steps he went, down and down. Now his eyes were no longer dazzled by the raying, and he could see what lay below, built up against the walls, clicking, flickering with small lights, filling all the vast place with a moaning hum. Sections of it were dark, dead, perhaps long dead. But others were very much alive, with something inimical to all living flesh and blood. Naill-memory supplied an answer, for Ayyar memory had never seen machines mankind had built to supplement brain power. He was descending into the heart of the largest computer he had ever seen or dreamed might exist.