"Computer!" Myrik's voice rose above the hum that filled the place as the murmur of wind in leaves filled the Forest.
Ayyar faced the great banks of flashing lights. The sword and the power had led him here. But what weapon was it against this, no thing which could be put to rout by any attack that he knew. Unless—who had set this giant brain to running? He was the Enemy!
He began to run along the towering wall of machine, came to a corner to front another section at right angles, turned along that to face another, and eventually returned about the square to join the others by the stairway. There was no other exit from this chamber, nothing here but the machine—part of it running, part dark and dead. Baffled, Ayyar came to a halt, still unable to believe there was no Enemy to front.
"Computer"—Jarvas studied the walls—"and programmed."
Myrik walked, not ran, along the same path Ayyar had taken, surveying closely each bank as he passed it.
"It is a computer, yes. But of no type I have ever seen—and it has been programmed, is in operation, part of it. Also, I think that it has once before been interrupted in the task set it. Come here—"
He motioned and they followed, almost timidly, to one of the dark sections. There he pointed to lines burned into the fabric of the machine. There was fusing, signs that repairs had been made—perhaps more successfully—in a neighboring section now working.
"Those machines Ayyar knocked out in the passages," Myrik said, "were servos—for computer repairs. I would say they have been on duty here perhaps longer than we can guess."
"Kymon!" Illylle's voice shrilled. "Kymon was here! But a machine—why—?"
"It was intended"—Jarvas moved out into the open area in the center—"for some great and important task. And it is not Iftin. Once it was half destroyed; now it is partially at work again. And we have seen the results of that work. It was set a task, which it strives to carry out—"
"But who set it?" queried Illylle. "Who or what is That?"
Rizak had gone to the nearest wall and was watching the lights in motion there. "I think," he said slowly, "that this is what we seek."
"This is what I was sent to find!" Ayyar broke in, as sure of that now as if someone had spoken in his ear.
"I do not think it was ever programmed on Janus at all!" Jarvas added. "It is not Iftin in any part. And we cannot but believe that Ifts are truly native to this world; they are so one with its nature. Therefore, this is alien—"
Rizak laughed a little wildly. "Did it ever occur to you, brothers, that what we stand in now might be a part of a ship—a long planeted ship?"
"Ship?" echoed Kelemark. "This—this big? What kind of ship could be so large?"
It was Lokatath, perhaps because he had once been a garthman, who ventured to answer that.
"A colony ship?"
Jarvas turned sharply, but Rizak spoke first:
"Could just be! A ship, with a computer programmed for colonization duties, perhaps never meant for Janus at all, making a crack-up landing here. Then the computer taking up its duties—not properly, under the circumstances."
Jarvas caught him up, speaking out of the knowledge of Pate Sissions, First-in Scout, one who had been the forerunner of such flights for those of his own species.
"Trying to alter the country to fit the needs of alien colonists. Ready to put down whatever would be inimical to settlement—"
"Such as the Iftin!" broke in Lokatath.
"And Kymon," Illylle added quickly, "coming here, armed with power, perhaps doing this—" She pointed to the bands of ancient destruction. "Then it was repaired after a long time. But why would it come to life again now?"
"Perhaps it has been alive all the time," Ayyar said, "but crippled, and it did not sense an enemy until the Ift changelings went abroad in the land. Why did it not rouse the colonists—or were they all killed in the crash?"
"The mirrors!" Illylle's eyes widened. "The colonists are the people on the mirrors."
"A reasonable assumption," Kelemark agreed. "And now it will be my turn to guess. You were right, Jarvas, when you claimed there was much to be read in those companies at the foot of the false tree. I do not know why the Iftin were set up there—but the Larsh—they were not the beginning but the end!"
It would seem that Jarvas understood, for the one-time Scout nodded. "De-evolution, not evolution. The computer aroused some of the passengers, found that there was that on Janus it could not change, could not alter. Though I imagine that all the resources left it have been turned to that task ever since—"
"What are you talking about?" Lokatath demanded.
"The ones it aroused did not remain the same," Jarvas explained. "They must have slipped back, generation by generation, from men—or what we may term 'men'—into the less-than-men we remember as the Larsh. And finally the Larsh were thrown against us to free Janus from any interference while this machine labored to fashion a new world, one that would safely accommodate its burden. But it was crippled—perhaps actually by Kymon of the legend."
He looked at the ancient sear marks. "We may never know whether those represent the coming of our folk hero or not. But the destruction was certainly deliberate, and it must have taken a long time to repair, even in part."
"But it failed—that destruction—" Myrik mused.
"Because," Rizak broke in, "it was wrought by an Ift, not one who knew the real meaning of this. He may have sprayed some energy back and forth, wrecking widely, but not to the roots—the heart of the machine."
"But the Oath, what then was the Oath?" asked Illylle.
Jarvas shrugged. "What history does not take on embroidery when it becomes heroic legend? I do not think that Kymon, the Ift, could explain, even to himself, what he found here—if this is where he fronted That in all Its might. Now we must have an answer to something else—what do we do? Myrik, Rizak, what do we do?"
"We can cripple it as was done before. But again that might prove to be but temporary, if you reckon centuries as temporary. If this was programmed to do what we guess it was, then it has also been provided with safeguards and repairs. And we do not know what lies in all these burrows. No, we have to find the heart control, wherever that lies, and burn it out for all time!
"Jarvas." Illylle took a step forward and laid her hand on his arm. "What of those it controls, made into mirror patterns and then robots? Can they be restored—saved?"
He did not meet her eyes. "Perhaps no, perhaps yes. But for that we must have both time and knowledge. And with this running, ruling the burrows and the Waste, able to muster an army against us—time we do not have. The machine first—"
They were all agreed upon that. Ayyar lifted the sword. Should he use the energy in that weapon to blast the banks around him? He had taken a step toward the nearest when Rizak thrust out his arm as a barrier before him.
"Not there!" He looked not at Ayyar but at the banks of lighted, clicking relays on the nearest wall.
"Where then?" Ayyar demanded. All he knew of computers was their servicing, not their innermost workings.
"We do not know," Myrik returned. "This thing runs the burrows—it controls ventilation, everything else. Smash it and it could close doors, stop air, bury us—and still we might not finish it off. We cannot move until we are more sure—"
"Look!" Illylle called sharply. She pointed to one of the banks they had thought dead, as it had been dark since they had entered.
Now a zigzag of lights streaked down it, to be as quickly gone. A second pattern flickered into life and vanished while they watched it. So small a thing, sparks of light coming and going swiftly. Yet somehow it was ominous, an alert they did not understand.
"Back—" Jarvas' voice was a whisper, as if he feared words could be picked up, read, understood by the machine that boxed them in. And Ayyar shared that feeling for the moment. An enemy one might see, that came openly, a kalcrok, one of the false Ift or an animated space suit, could be faced with firmness of purpose. But lights on a computer board, meant to awaken some menace, they were certain—that was another matter.
Three times those lights drew a design on the board, and each time the sequence was different, as was the color. For the first time they had been a light blue, the second a darker, and the third time purple. Ayyar knew that the others were as tense, using all their senses for any intimation of present danger.
"Myrik—where do you place the master controls?" Jarvas whispered.
"They can be anyplace. I am not expert on alien computers."
"Ayyar, do you feel any pull from a source of power?" The Mirrormaster rounded on him.
He raised the sword and pointed it to the board that had just come to life. He could feel his own form of force surge through his body, as if it fretted at the bonds of flesh now containing it—would be free to meet, in some flare of incandescence, that other and alien power.
Closing his eyes, he tried to measure that ebb and flow of energy, turning slowly, blindly, using the sword as a pointer to hunt out the center of That. There was a slight change as he turned to the right, so slight that he could not actually be sure he had felt anything. He took another fraction of a turn, was aware of a difference, for now he was rent by a rising storm. He might have cried out; he was not sure, but still he turned. Ebb, to be followed again by flow, now ebb—complete quiet. Ayyar opened his eyes. Now he faced a dead portion of the banks, crisscrossed by the old scars, with no signs of repair.
Eyes closed once more—why that was needful he did not know—but self-blinded he was more inwardly aware of that other force. Turn—flow—to a lesser degree, turn, ebb, flow, sharp and strong, lessening—dead. Then, following so quickly on the dead that he swayed and nearly fell, strong, very strong, flow, flow, ebb, flow—
Yes, by so much could he chart the life of the banks, but that also the others could see and hear for themselves. He was about to say this when Illylle spoke.
"Try underfoot."
Why she suggested that Ayyar did not know. He took a step or so along, and the sword dipped in his hold, its tip not now pointing to the banks but to the floor. Again he made that slow swing to face each wall. Ebb and flow again, as above—
Then he was being pulled forward as if the sword were a rope, the end drawn by a port machine. This time Ayyar could not save himself against the urgency but went to his knees, and as the sword point dug into the flooring, Ayyar opened his eyes. He was at the foot of the ladder down which they had come. And from his sword point sparks arose higher and higher, while under the tip the floor began to glow red. He dared not watch; the glow hurt his Ift eyes. The sword sank, as if the floor were soft sand, to engulf the blade and finally the arm of its bearer.
"Move it to cut!" Jarvas knelt beyond that fire of sparks. He put out a hand as if to lay it on the sword hilt, then flinched back.
Only half understanding, Ayyar tried to move the blade. It yielded a little so he was cutting through the substance of the floor, or was that merely melting away from any contact with the blade? Wider grew the hole. He thrust right, left, forward, back, enlarging it yet more. Now he must jerk back himself to escape a puff of heat coming from the red and glowing edges of that opening.
Out of him flowed the energy that had been pent in his body. He could almost watch it going into the sword, helping to open this door. Now the opening was large enough for a man, and the smell of molten metal a fog.
"On the stairs—watch out!" He did not know which of them shouted that warning. A beam cut down, struck across the edge of the hole, touched the sparks of the sword force, flashed up in a great burst of light.
Ayyar cried out, blinded. He could not drop the sword that moved, pulling him after it. Heat seared his body, pain such as he had not known could exist— He fell, blind, the sword a great weight he could not master or loose. He struck something below, close below, and lay there writhing in pain. Still the sword was heavy, inert; he could not even stir the hand that held it. And again energy flowed out of him. He could smell burning—acrid—choking—
He sat by the game board, and on that board shone brightly all those curious lines, squares, and dots he could not read. That, which had been his opponent there, which he had never seen, only sensed—yes, It was there, but It no longer heeded him. It had—not retreated, no—It had closed into Itself. When he looked down upon the board, all those figures—the space suits, the Larsh, the others—were overturned, rolling. Now and then one rose, only to topple.
On his side, though the trees—the thin line of Iftin—trembled and shook, they did not fall or roll.
And That which had played the unknown game so confidently—It drew farther and farther in upon Itself. Yet It was still to be feared, for now It was mad—mad!
Arms about him, holding him—the board vanished. He must say it aloud—
"It—is—mad—"
They were pulling at him, racking his body with pain. He could not see—
"Let—me—" But they did not listen to his pleas, and he was an empty thing, hollow of all save the energy he had held, so that he could not beg or fight those hands.
"To the air—can you bring him? Look out! Blast that one—now move!"
Words without meaning uttered in high voices. Words did not matter—nothing mattered. He was lost and empty and knew only pain that was sometimes sharp, sometimes dull, but always a part of him. After a space it was in his chest, so he choked and coughed and choked again. And this added to the pain. He longed for the dark to shut it out.
"Look—It has gone crazy— Oh—" Shrill that voice, so shrill and high as to pierce his dark. "The trees—Rizak, look out for the trees!"
Ayyar could breathe better now. There was a difference in the air. Hands still on him, holding him tight. Liquid dripped into his mouth, cool on his lips and chin as it dribbled out again. He swallowed. It was cool inside him, too.
Coolness on his eyes, soothing their burning. He drew a breath that was a little broken sigh, relaxed.
Around him was a sickening lurch of earth, a grinding—then a shrill screaming from farther off. He could not move, though in him worked a ferment to be up and running, away from this mad place. The arms that held him tightened, bringing stabbing pains to his chest and shoulder. Ayyar tried to cry out, but any sound he might make was lost in the surrounding tumult. Again the earth heaved, there were crashes—
He blinked, trying to clear his dim sight. Shadows moved against a lighter surface. Something large and black flew past—he heard another cracking—splintering—
"Out! Out of this trap!" That came at his ear. He was raised and carried between two others, his feet helplessly bumping against the ground.
They paused, holding him upright. The ground no longer swung sickeningly underfoot, yet still he waited for that to happen again. They were fumbling about his body, pulling a band tight under his arms. He was hauled aloft, the pressure of that band causing such agony that once more he plunged into a blackness of nothing at all save the blessed ceasing of torment.
"Ayyar—Ayyar—"
He lay in the hold of a ship, frozen, dead. He was Naill Renfro who had sold himself into labor on a distant world. But he had awakened before his time, and now he was dying deep in the emigrant capsule, his lungs denied air, his flesh freezing in the cold of space. He strove to fling out his hands, his arms, break open that coffin for a few moments of life—of—
Dark—but no longer cold. There was moisture in his mouth, soothing, more on his eyes, his face. They had heard him in the ship and had come to save him. Not death between the stars—but life!
He opened his eyes as that cooling substance was withdrawn. He could see—mistily—but still he could see!
No ship's officer, no medico bent over him. An oval face, green of skin, large eyes set slantingly in it. A delicate face, in its way fair. No eyebrows, no lashes, no hair above the wide brow—
"Ayyar—" Those lips shaped a word.
Ayyar? Greeting, inquiry, name? He wanted to ask which, but he could not find the energy to speak.
Another figure behind the one bending over him rose out of the ground. Like unto the first—still different—
"How is he?"
"Awake, I think—" Doubt from that first one, the nearest.
"Ayyar?" The newcomer dropped beside him, a green hand passed before his eyes, and he watched it move.
"He sees!" There was satisfaction in that as the tester straightened. "Ayyar?" More demanding now.
Ayyar? Who, what, was Ayyar? Ayyar of Iftcan! Triumphantly his memory supplied so much. He—was—Ayyar! He was pleased, excited at that discovery.
"He knows—he is Ayyar once again!" The first of the green people—Green People? Iftin! Again his mind sluggishly supplied a name and knew it to be the proper one.
"Ayyar, we must go!"
The taller of the two drew him up and let him lean against his shoulder to look out dizzily on what lay below. The ground swung wildly and then steadied. Red and black, churned earth, stirred together as one might mix the ground if one were a giant and set to work with a paddle or a sword of force—
Sword? His hand went out—seeking. "Sword?" He was not sure he asked that aloud, but perhaps he did, for she who faced him, concern in her eyes, made answer swiftly:
"It is gone—when it met That. Kymon's blade did not do as well in its time as that which Ayyar bore—"
"Later will come the weaving of legends," he who supported Ayyar said. "Now let us go, if still we can."
Another man came to aid him who held Ayyar. He looked from one to the other. Memory again gave Ayyar names.
"Jarvas—Kelemark—"
They smiled at him eagerly, as if that naming gave them pleasure. But the smiles did not last, for they must go down into the torn land and make their way through it.
Ayyar thought he dreamed sometimes as they made their slow and painful journey, for it seemed to him that once they hid in a cut in the ground as a hurtling thing, squeaking and groaning, rocketed by. And again they crouched among rocks as green people, like unto the Iftin, yet very different inwardly, struggled blindly, seizing upon one another with fierce tearing, or rushed headlong into rocks, making a wild, mad battlefield of a place where light hurt his eyes so he must close them tight. But none of this was real, nor did he fear what he saw.
The world began with a green covering. Thin was that covering, a small lacing of budding leaves along stem and branch, and through that delicate pattern came the silver of the moon to rest on his face. He breathed in subtle scents, and in him Ayyar awakened fully, so that though his body did not have the strength when he strove to move, yet his mind was clear, and he could recall the past—some of it.
His struggle to sit up must have summoned her, for Illylle came to him and knelt, carrying in her hand a wooden bottle. She gave him to drink, holding it quickly to his lips a second time when he would have asked questions. Once more the sap revived, and he let it do its work, coursing through his body. Then he braced himself up with his hands. They were in a glade of a forest or wood, and spring was there. Was this a dream—?
"Where are we?" he asked, for somehow it was important to be sure they were free of the burrows.
Illylle sat back upon her heels, smiling at him, one hand tamping the stopper well into the bottle.
"In the wilderness to the north."
"Iftcan!"
"No. Iftcan is not and will not be again." There was a shadow on her face. "It cannot be again, for a new rooting is needed, not a graft upon the old—"
Ayyar did not try to puzzle out her answer. For the time he was content they were in the woods again, Iftcan or no. But that content did not hold long. When the others came through the aisles of budding trees, he wanted to know more.
"We have won the victory against That," Jarvas said. "Or rather the power granted by Thanth won it, for your sword—with its energy—ate to the center of the computer, burned it out. But That went mad when the controls were cut. And we do not yet know what remains. The false Iftin, the machines It took as servants—they, too, went mad and destroyed themselves. How it fares with those it captured, we do not yet know. A party has gone to the port. If they find the false off-worlders there and also uncontrollable, they will do what they can to take over. What has happened, how far the curse set upon Janus has passed—" He shook his head.
"This much is true. We have finished That for all time, for with Its heart burnt out It can never rebuild Itself again. The chaos It has left is wide wreckage. If we cannot free those It captured, and we may not be able to do so, then we have a second plan. We shall leave a tape at the port stating all that has happened and also beam an off-world distress signal. Our own secret that we are changelings—we shall keep yet awhile. But we can treat with any who come as natives of Janus. Only, until such arrive, we shall retreat overseas—if nothing can be done for the prisoners."
He looked beyond Ayyar as if he sought something, to find it missing, and regretted that, but was willing to put aside his regret.
"Iftcan is gone, not to rise again. We do not know how much of Iftin past lies in the wreckage of the Waste and That's domain. Perhaps with off-world aid we can learn. We shall raise a new nation, and one that will not have the canker of That eating at it. But for one day, one task. Seeding, growing cannot be hurried—to try that is to fail."
He fell silent, and Ayyar, who must forget that he was ever Naill, lifted his head to the night wind. It was cool, sweet with all the promise of spring. They rested in the wreckage of a world, yet around them grew strong new life to which they were akin. And in him, just as that energy from the Mirror had risen, so did another renewing begin. Iftcan was dead to them, yes. But the Great Crowns would rise again, and there would be songs sung there of the remembrance of this time down a long, long trail of years, though legend might twist and turn the tale so that false would in time bury true.
"Iftin sword, Iftin hand,
Iftin heart, Iftin kind.
Forged in the dark,
Cooled by the moon,
Bane of evil, final doom.
Borne by a warrior who will stand
Before the Enemy, blade in hand—"
Illylle was singing, gaily, almost tenderly, as if her thoughts marched side by side, sword comrade with his. Ayyar shook his head.
"I am not Kymon, and I was not alone. No hero song for me."
Jarvas laughed. "Leave judgment to the future. Now, shall we be about the needs of the present?"
He held out his hand, Ayyar grasped it, and the Mirrormaster's strength drew him to his feet. His other hand went out to Illylle. And they went from that glade singing the song of Kymon, as was fitting on a day of such victory.