Naill could not guess what response she aroused from the others. But in him there was a glow of anger and above it a wild, fierce determination to stand against the Enemy. He shouted a long-forgotten battle cry and did not know he mouthed it, for now he was not hand-linked to a company of fugitives; he was marching with his men, going to the First Ring of Iftcan. And in him pride and belief were no longer dim but fiery bright and clear as the green spark that had tipped his blade to open the Guard Way of the Mirror.
Iftcan and his vision of the waste melted into one, fitting together so that green growth merged with rock, fertile forest soil with sand. And he was Ayyar as Ayyar had been in the greatest day of his life.
“The Mirror Ring—oh, my brothers—there is the Mirror Ring!” Illylle’s voice cut through Naill’s dream, and the vision she now saw fitted over the vision of Iftcan’s Tree Towers—gray mountain with over it a patch of cloud growing and spreading to cut away the glare of the sun. They were all running, speeding across ground they did not see with their eyes.
Then—the Enemy struck! Heat—light—something akin to lightning cracked in their faces. That brooding fear Naill had felt waiting beyond the walls encasing the Mirror Road took on body—strength. The wailing of the wytes was no longer distant. And his long-ago battleground became here and now.
Why he did it he could not have answered sensibly, but he flung back his head, raised his face to a sky from which, through the fold of cloth, came a searing, baking heat. Then Naill called—not only with voice, but with mind, with every part of him. And the shrill “hooooorrruuuur” of that call carried, echoed and re-echoed.
“On—on!” That was Illylle’s demand. Somehow she was keeping them moving, summoning up their will, their strength, projecting for them the road they must take.
There was a roll of sound—a muttering along the distant reaches of the sky. A puff of wind blew in their faces, swirling up sand and grit to score the skin. But it was not the furnace blast of the waste; it was cool, carrying with it the smell of the forest.
And with the wind rode other things—feathered things—hooting, protesting, yet coming. Wheeling, dipping above those who ran, the quarrin kind had answered Naill’s summoning—not only Hoorurr, but perhaps all of his species still holding to the shadows and glades of Iftcan. The fugitives could not see them, but they felt the impact of the quarrin thoughts, heard through the wind the sound of their wings. Three times the birds circled the runners, and then they dropped behind to where the wytes howled on a fresh and open trail.
The heat about them was the heat of anger. It had been so long since That Which Abode had roused to full participation in any struggle that It was sluggish, unable to summon quickly old strengths and powers. That was what saved them. For had It struck earlier with the pressure It could exert, they would have been stamped to nothingness in the dust of the waste.
“On—up!” Illylle’s battle cry was a hacking sob. Naill’s hand dropped hers; flung out his right arm and closed it about her waist. She was stumbling, hardly able to keep her feet. But before them was the barrier wall of the Mirror Road, and they had met it where the rocks were as high as his head.
“Here!” He drew all the runners together with a call as he held up the girl, felt her wriggle in his hold. Then she was out of his grasp, gone—and out of his mind in the same move. A curtain had fallen between them.
“Over this!” Naill pictured in his own mind for the others the barrier about the road as he had seen it days ago. He stood with his hand on the rock wall, drawing each in turn to it, starting them to climb.
The wytes cried very closely now, their hunting bays broken by snaps, snarls—as if they fought. Naill guessed that the quarrin harassed that portion of the enemy forces.
The invisible power was the worst. Naill was thrust back and back—pulled from the roadway which he knew meant safety. Another step and he would be lost in his blindness. The heat bit into his brain, spread a blasting numbness down nerve and muscle.
Out of somewhere came a rope; a noose settled about his shoulders, jerked tight about his arms, tight enough to wring a gasp of pain from him. Now the pull was in the opposite direction. Naill stumbled and spun, breathless, only half conscious of the struggle.
“Dark the seed, green the Leaf—
Iftin power, Iftin belief . . .”
Had he said that, thought it? Had it come from him at all? A second in which to wonder, a moment of release from pressure growing intolerable, then with a bruising crash his body brought up against the rock wall of the road. He climbed—to fall into a swift stream of cool air and the welcoming hands of his companions.
The roll of thunder grew into a mighty beat of sound. Naill dragged off his blindfold and followed the others as they ran along the road. Above them was a gray ribbon of cloud, the edge of a mighty sunshade which stretched from the east as if it had its birth in the sky above dying Iftcan.
There stood the gate of the Guard Way. No sword had been drawn to open it this time, but the symbol on the keystone glowed green. The stairs—they took those stairs still at a breakneck pace, halting only when they reached the shelf overhanging the Mirror.
A storm was coming, such a storm as had beaten the forest when Naill sheltered in Iftsiga. No wind reached into the basin which held the Mirror, yet the water was troubled. It moved in ripples around and around, rising with each stir of that circling.
Forces were gathering: forces such as Naill Renfro had never known—forces Ayyar held in awe.
Illylle moved a little away from the rest. She had swept off the goggles, stood watching the circling of the water.
“There has been a seeding. There is now a growing—soon will come the Leafing. But without the seeds, there will be no Leaf! If a Leaf is willed—protect the seeds and the growing. Give us now Your judging. Shall the seeds endure until the Leafing?”
Was that an invocation of something—something utterly opposed to that which they fled—something that was the very life of Janus? Naill believed it to be so. And they stood to witness the answer to her appeal.
Up and up the water raced about the sides of the Mirror frame. It lapped against the edge of the ledge on which they stood, yet none of them retreated. Naill felt no fear. Once more he seemed on the edge of a great discovery. The time might not yet be fully ripe, but someday it would—and he was a part of it!
The first of those waves touched the peaks that cradled the Mirror—touched, lapped, spilled over. Faster and faster the water swirled. It was now ribboned and laced with green foam, spun by the speed of its boiling. Over through a dozen—two dozen—channels poured that flood, fountaining out into the waste beyond the boundaries of the Mirror frame. The wind howled, the clouds broke, pouring down a second kind of flood.
Under that deluge the fugitives gasped and reeled, but they did not seek shelter. It was a growing rain, a rain to encourage sprouting seeds—new life.
Lightning . . . lashes were laid in whip lines across the sky to the west. There was an answering blast there—a white glare flaring skyward as if to dry the clouds instantly of their water burden. A terrible consuming anger strove to strike them, even this far away, as a wave of expanding energy. Then the rain closed down. The Mirror continued to pour its substance out and down to water the desert plain.
How long did that continue—the Mirror spilling, the clouds emptying rain? A few hours—a day? Naill could not have told. He was only aware that in time there was an end to that fury. Clouds parted. Stars shone serene in the sky. Still they were together on the ledge above a now quiet Mirror. And they were awed and small before a power far greater than they could imagine.
“We have much to learn.” Jarvas who had been Pate Sissions spoke first.
“We have much to do.” That was Torry, again Kelemark.
“It has not conquered—this time.” Naill-Ayyar’s hand was on his sword as he faced west.
He who had once been Monro and was now wholly Rizak smiled. “Nothing is ever too easy, if it is worth the winning—and the holding.”