“As it can,” agreed Illylle. “That has many strange powers. But why do they move in the day—?”
“Because time is our enemy; can you think of a better reason?” Rizak wanted to know. “That is aware that we are here somewhere, that we were unable to follow the brothren overseas last fall. So It has launched this attack. Thus when our kin do return, they must land in the thick of it, perhaps to be burned down before they know the why or even that they have any enemies!”
“And what of our com messages?” It was Ayyar following the old pattern of marshaling his thoughts aloud. “If those from the port find the false Iftin waiting there when they come, they will deem it a trap.”
“Yes,” Jarvas acknowledged. “Therefore—we must discover wherefore this horde moves and if they plan to leave the Waste.” He balled his right hand into a fist and ground it into the palm of the left. “If only our memories were sharper! I had thought Its servants did not venture beyond the Waste—yet the false Iftin crossed the river.”
“Never forget the Larsh. They moved at That’s will beyond the barriers of the Oath. What seems to bind the master does not prevent the servant from carrying out orders,” Illylle replied.
“One of my last clear Ayyar memories is that of slitting a wyte at the very foot of a Great Crown. Yet in an earlier day such would not even bay at the distant shadow of Iftcan,” added Ayyar. “I say again, what of any who are drawn to the com? Trap of our setting it will not be, unless unwittingly, but trap it may well prove!”
“Therefore”—Jarvas got to his feet—”trap it must not be! If we lose this chance to tell them the truth, we might as well flee before the wind like leaves, with no hope of a seeding. So—now we must spread ourselves. Illylle, you most of all have need to fear attention from That. What would It not give to have even a memory-crippled Sower within Its hold. Therefore—back to the seashore for you.”
“And for the same reason”—she rose to front the standing Jarvas—”must you be careful, Jarvas. Oh, yes, you remember less of the Words and the Gift even than do I, but once you had them. And who knows whether That might not have Its own ways to awaken more memory than you wish. Therefore, run not into a net.”
He smiled, but grimly. “Perhaps I alone have other memories to convince those from the port of who and what we are. Therefore, I have no choice but to return to our ordained meeting and there do the best I can. Now—” He faced the rest of them. “Rizak will come with me. And Kelemark, do you go seaward with Illylle. For you twain”—he looked now to Ayyar and Lokatath—”scouting—one north, one along the river. Decide which between you.”
“And west?” Lokatath asked.
“West we shall leave, for now. To track the enemy on his own ground is a risk we are not yet driven to taking. It is more necessary to see what garthmen and port force are about.”
They stripped off their packs but kept their cloaks for cover. Illylle and Kelemark, loaded with the supplies, started south, the rest, north.
“Smell it, brothers?” Lokatath’s nostrils were wide, his head up, as he tested the air from the west.
“Yes, false Ift—and others—” Ayyar made identification.
“I will take cross river if you agree,” Lokatath said. “That land is known to me.” Out of the garths as he was, the choice was sensible.
So once more Ayyar trotted north. At first he would share the trail with Jarvas and Rizak. Then he would be on his own with perhaps the remains of Iftcan as his final goal.
The sun was high and bright. Even wearing the leaf goggles, they suffered. But they saw nothing move, save now and then a bird in the air, an animal or stream dweller going about its business. Burnt lengths of wood drifted down the current, bringing the rank death stench with them. Ayyar did not doubt that those destroying the Forest were still about that murderous business. And could the Iftin hope to prevail in any argument against the hatred and hysteria of the garthmen? Or the determination of those from the port?
“Flitter! Northeast—”
As one they took to such cover as the ground afforded at Rizak’s warning. The hum they could hear, but it was a second or two before they saw the machine against the too-bright sky.
“Too late! We cannot get there before they ground—” Jarvas muttered.
“In more ways than one, too late!” Ayyar added. From the Waste came a shrill yapping that roughed his skin, brought hand to sword hilt, and blade half out of its sheath before he was conscious of that move. “The wytes are coursing.”
Garthmen had their hounds, so did That. But the wytes were not any hound such as honest flesh would own. Once before in this time he had faced them as they bayed at Illylle and him in the Enemy’s seared land. They could be killed or sent to what they knew as death, but only one by one, whereas they hunted and slew as a pack.
“They close in—” he cried.
“Seeking— Ah, look you!” Rizak’s cry was even louder. The flitter was larger than the scout they had grounded to gain a com. It was coming fast. But from somewhere deep in the heart of the Waste, there flashed a searing beam to meet it, envelop it with incandescence.
All three of the Iftin fell upon their knees, their hands to their eyes, blinded for a moment. Ayyar knew a stab of fear. Were they to be blinded in truth? Painful tears trickled from beneath the lids he kept tightly closed. All he could see was red, blood red, filling the world.
“Is it—is it gone?” Out of the red world he heard Rizak ask that. Against his will he opened his eyes. Red, more red. But through it dimly he could distinguish rock and brush. He was not blind!
The hum of the flitter he no longer heard. The machine must have flamed into nothingness in that beam. But now he was dragged to one side as a hand fell heavily on his shoulder and gripped him tightly.
“It—it is still flying—landing—!”
Blurred as his sight now was, Ayyar could see that Jarvas was right. There was the flitter, no longer concealed by a dazzle of light, descending as if normally piloted. Yet the hum of motor was gone. And now the shrilling of the wytes arose to a scream that hurt his ears, to add to the pain of his outraged eyes. That pain acted as a spur. He got to his feet and started to run, though he staggered from side to side, toward the place where the flitter would ground. Behind him he heard the others coming, at intervals during that awful baying.
Why he was so bound and what he would do there, Ayyar had no idea. But that he must do this, he knew. And he swayed out into the open as the flitter touched down, without thinking for the moment that he might well be running into the fire of blasters. Only, as some measure of sense came back to him, he stopped. There was no opening of the cabin door.
“Dead?” Rizak asked from his right.
“Perhaps.” Jarvas advanced to the flyer, walking in an odd, stiff-legged fashion, his body rebelling against the orders of his mind.
But before he could set hand to the flitter, the cabin door slid back and a man crawled into the open on hands and knees, falling the few feet to the ground. Scrabbling for leverage, he then advanced, still on hands and knees and crept back to the side of the flyer where he pulled himself up. He wore the tunic of the port security police, and officer’s star on the shoulder, and he stared straight before him as if he were as blind as Ayyar had been moments earlier.
A second man emerged in the same helpless fashion. This one was older, and he had a civilian’s tunic. He sprawled forward, lying face down, moaning a little, providing a stumbling block for the third man, this young one in a pilot’s uniform.
“In shock, I think.” Rizak supplied one explanation. “Listen!”
A wyte bay, very loud and clear. To the hunters from the Waste these off-worlders would prove easy prey. Jarvas clutched the arm of the pilot.
“Get them—we must take them away before—” he ordered in gasps.
To touch—to hold and support one of those men—he could not! Every atom in Ayyar screamed that. But he must! He had to! They could not be left for the wytes.
He stooped and caught at the outflung hand of the elder man, pulling at him. To his surprise the off-worlder arose, as if he needed only Ayyar’s tug to bring him to obedience. He got to his feet and allowed the Ift to lead him back among the rocks where they had a small, a very small chance at defense. And as easily, the other two came with Jarvas and Rizak. But they continued to stare straight ahead, no change in their blank faces, as if they were now the robots.