Dark—the dark was drawing in. And with it . . . Naill’s eyes moved from side to side. His night sight could not reach far enough in the storm’s gloom. There were shades—things—which could be bushes swaying in the wind . . . or something else. Only none of those deceptive bushes touched upon the roadway, nor did they approach it too closely. It was framed by rock and bare earth.
And those rocks, mere rounded boulders at first, looked entirely natural in this grim country—until they crowded more thickly at the road edges, rising in rude walls, first waist high to the fugitives, then even with their shoulders, and on to tower above their heads, until those giant slabs on either side let in only a slit of sullen gray sky far above. Naill believed now they were a wall built with purpose—to protect the road, shelter those who used it?
Down in this trough between those rock ridges the wind was gone, but now and then a distant play of lightning could be seen. Rain began, funneled down upon them by the rock walls, running in streams to join a widening rivulet about their feet, ankles, calves.
“Illylle, if this water rises . . .” Naill broke out.
“It will not. Soon we come to the Guard Way.”
“Where do we go?” He tried for enlightenment the second time.
“Up”—she sketched the direction with a rising hand—”to the Mirror. To the Earth’s Center.”
She was right; the road was rising, becoming steeper. But still it ran north and they must be well into the waste. No murk clung in this cut, nor did Naill smell any of the reek the drifting mist had carried. Here was only rock washed by the rain.
Now Illylle slackened pace. “The Guard Way—have you the word?”
“No.” Naill stared ahead eagerly. The rocks in the wall arched, met to form a dark mouth of what might be a tunnel. There was shelter from the storm, but there might be other things to consider past temporary comfort of body. For some reason Naill’s hand fell to his sword hilt; he drew the blade.
Slim silver in the gloom. A speck of green danced on its point, brightened, flared as if he bore a torch. Then Naill saw on the rock of the arch other green flecks come to life, flash but not die. On the sweep of the keystone a symbol waxed into life—glowed.
Illylle laughed. “Not dead—not dead—sleeping only—to awake—awake!” Her voice arose in a cry of triumph.
“Starlight, swordlight, Ift-borne,
Welcomes back the wanderers.
Far travel, sleep long,
But the Power returns. . . .”
She swung about, standing now under the vast curve of the arch with its glittering green symbol, held out her hands to Naill in a wide gesture of welcome.
“Sword-bearer, give me your name!”
“Naill Renfro,” one part of him said with a desperate stubbornness. But he answered aloud, “I am Ayyar, tree borne in Ky-Kyc—Captain of the First Ring of Iftcan.”
“Sword-bearer, come, be free of the Guard Way.”
They were faced by a stairway in place of the road, a stair that climbed up and up under the rock roof, leading where Naill could not guess. And the Ayyar memories did not supply an answer here. Together, shoulder to shoulder, they climbed those stairs. And as Naill faltered and limped, Illylle lent him her strength. There was a feeling of serenity and comfort that flowed from her arm under his, her nearness, into his tired body, keeping him climbing.
How long was that stairway? What space of time passed as they climbed it? They were outside normal time in a strange way Naill Renfro could not have produced words to explain, but which Ayyar found right and natural. Around him was the past, and any moment now some barrier would break, and the past would flow in upon both of them. Then they would know all the answers, and there would be no more questions to ask.
Only that did not happen; the end of the stairway came before they broke that intangible barrier. They came out into the open once more on a straight, smooth ledge in a cup, which might have been the cratered cone of a small volcano. Stark walls rose from a sheet of untroubled water, a silver mirror that did not reflect the light—for there was no light overhead now, not even a prick of star—but rather contained a glow within itself, as if it were a pool of fluid metal.
“The Mirror!” Illylle spoke softly, for they were in truth intruders, disturbing something vast—beyond human comprehension—something so old, so full of power, that Naill flung up his sword arm, hand still weighted by the drawn blade, to hide his face. Her fingers were warm on his wrist, drawing it down once more.
“Look!” she commanded, and in that order was such authority that he must obey.
Mirror still, mirror bright—vast as an ocean, small enough to be scooped up by his two hands—it spread, it shrank, it pulled, it repelled. And under all Naill’s emotional stress—fear and awe—there grew an aching hunger. What he desired most did not come. Again there was a barrier between him and what waited just beyond, something so wonderful, so changing of spirit, that he could have cried aloud his loss and frustration, beaten down that wall with his sword. All knowledge was there—and he could not reach it!
Through his own depths of desire and sorrow Naill heard Ashla crying. And that sound drew him back to sight and awareness, not of what could have been, but of what was. The girl crouched on the ledge above the Mirror as she had beside the forest pool where the consciousness of her changing had first come to her. But there was no terror or horror here. No, like him, she was torn by the loss of what she could not have, for all her reaching.
Naill knelt beside her and drew her into his arms. Together they took comfort from the fact that this overwhelming failure was shared, was a part of each of them.
“What have we done?” she whimpered at last.
“It is what we are,” he replied, and knew that he spoke the truth. “We are only a part of what we should be to stand here. We are Illylle and Ayyar, but we are also Naill and Ashla. So we are neither truly one or the other—to fear wholly . . . or to have all.”
“I cannot—” She drew her hand across her tear-wet face and began again. “How can one go on—knowing that this is here and yet one cannot have it? We have been judged and found wanting.”
“Are you sure that will always be so—the judgment is final?” Naill had begun that as reassurance; now he wondered for himself, too. “Suppose—suppose”—he put his groping into words and the words were like water to a sun-dried traveler, bringing their own comfort—”that Illylle and Ayyar will grow the greater, Naill and Ashla the less. It has been a very little time since we were changed.”
“Do you believe that in truth, or is it only words said in kindness?” she challenged him.
“I meant them as words to be kind.” He felt compelled to the strict truth in this place. “But now—now I believe them!”
“This is the Mirror of Thanth. And in it is the Power and the Seeing. Someday—perhaps the Seeing will be ours then. . . . And, oh, the richness of that Seeing!”
“Now”—Naill arose and drew her up with him—”it is better that we go.”
Ashla nodded. “If I could only remember more—the way of the Asking and the Giving—”
“I do not remember as much as you do,” Naill told her quickly.
“But you are a warrior, a Sword-bearer—for you it is the Giving, not the Asking,” she burst out impatiently and then stood, hand to lips, as if startled by her own words. “Only bits do I remember . . . but once—once I knew it all! Illylle will come back fully, then I shall know again. But you are right. For us now this is a forbidden place. We have escaped the Wrath only because we came with clean hearts and in ignorance!”
They went down the stair, but when they reached the gate of the Guard Way, Naill slipped and lowered himself stiffly to the stone pavement under its arch.
“I do not think I can go any further, whether I provoke the Wrath or not,” he told her simply.
“And I do not believe that shelter here will be denied us,” she returned. “Give me your sword—for again I remember, a little.”
She took the weapon by its leaf-shaped blade and laid it flat on the pavement directly beneath the archway. “The key will keep open the way.”
Then Ashla opened Naill’s pack, exclaiming over its contents. Together they ate of the bread, drank from the bottle he had refilled at the river. Naill’s last waking sight was of Ashla shaking out the extra clothing, measuring it against her. He drifted to sleep, his head pillowed on an Iftin cloak. Outside, the murmur of running water on a road older than man-kept time was a soothing lullaby.