“This company of Larsh—tell us again of them—”
Ayyar was impatient, eager to finish his report. But he reacted to the note of command and once again described the silent line of the Enemy’s servants, beginning with the bestial Larsh, ending with the space-suited figure of one who was wholly man.
“And these, you say, stood in reverse order to the company of the Iftin, beginning with the Larsh, ending with true man, while an Ift of the final days faced the Larsh?”
Ayyar nodded. Jarvas turned his head to ask of the questioner:
“You believe that this has some special meaning, Olyron?”
“It might. And what was beyond that, Ayyar?”
He continued with the room of the machines, of how his sword had unlocked the lower passage, of the place of stored mirrors. Again he heard the quickened breathing of those who listened.
On he continued to the stairwell, which was closed past his power to open. And now Jarvas asked:
“Are you sure that what you were sent to seek lay below?”
Ayyar did not doubt that in the least or that skill beyond his must be applied to draw that cork of slagged metal. He told them the rest—his fight with the false Ift, the coming of the garthwomen and children, his return to Illylle, and finally his sight of Amper in the Waste. When he spoke of that, he heard them stir uneasily.
Once his story was told, weariness again descended upon him. Kelemark must have sensed that, for he offered a wooden cup, and what it contained was tree sap, spring sweet, to clear his mind and wash away his fatigue.
“So—” Some of the company had gone, but Kelemark, Jarvas, and the man called Olyron remained. It was the latter who spoke. “So, it would seem that the task yet remains to be done.” His tone was bleak, and Ayyar read into it criticism of the tool that had been chosen by the Mirror and then failed in action. And he regarded Olyron with answering coolness. But Jarvas smiled, if fleetingly, with a warmth for Ayyar.
“We know much more. And we cannot hope to win a war with a single small skirmish. Tell me, Olyron, who of those with us now holds in his other memory a knowledge of tools or procedure such as would clear that plug for us?”
Ayyar sat up and cautiously swung his wounded leg around. He found it stiff, but only a small ache remained, and there was already a scab formed, no need for bandage.
“To use off-world memory there,” he pointed out, “is to come under That’s control.”
“Then a memory of a memory, perhaps,” Jarvas returned. “A memory recalled, given to another who will use it second-hand and not be caught in the web of his own pre-Ift self. Possible, Olyron?”
The other nodded. “It might be. This—this has such tangled roots that it is hard to trace any one stem from their supporting. I feel deeply that the line of Larsh has meaning for us—if we could only read it! And these mirrors that can pattern a man, then build a robot from his image—store it as you saw in the cavern— An Ift you once knew— So do they remain or only the mirrors? We follow a force that reaches us through a Mirror—yet that is a Mirror of water that lives and even wars upon occasions, while these reflectors slay or imprison.”
Jarvas looked beyond them—to the wood wall of the cabin. “Tolhron,” he said softly.
“Place of sorrow and of fasting,
Of evil everlasting.
Chained are they who lie on Tolhron
By the blood and by the bone
Of those who set the spell
Delving deep into the well
Wherein all nothingness doth dwell—”
Ayyar saw that Kelemark and Olyron were as much at a loss as he to interpret Jarvas’ chant.
Then Jarvas laughed shortly. “Memory again. That is an old tale, one for children, concerning a master of wayward arts who set up a place wherein he kept captives. And they could not be freed because the floor of his prison was mixed with blood and bone over which he had evil control, so that only when similar blood and bone were brought there might the prisoners be freed. I do not know why this rises to mind now.”
“There was in this story some connection between this Tolhron and That?” asked Kelemark.
“Not that I can remember.”
“In many legends there lies a grain of true history,” Olyron commented. “And the fact that it comes to your mind now— If only we knew more of the Oath of Kymon! But your idea of shared memory has merit. You are sure you can find the right mound again?” he demanded of Ayyar.
“I made as sure of that as I could. And Illylle?” He turned to Jarvas.
“She can be brought here. Then, I believe, we can restore her. Two parties, one to rescue her, one to go to the mound—”
“Why not one, picking her up on their return?” Olyron wanted to know.
“Because that one might not return!” Ayyar slipped from the bunk, stood up, one hand braced on the wall. They did not try to hinder him.
Olyron went to the door. “I will ask for any memory that can aid us.”
“And what if he cannot find such?” Ayyar perversely saw all the stumbling blocks in their path.
“Then we shall have to do the best we can without—” Jarvas began when Kelemark interrupted him.
“There are tools, all we might need—at the port—”
“A second choice, though whether we could use them is another matter,” Jarvas pointed out. Would their revulsion hinder that?
“Illylle had me rub the interior of the suit with leaves. I could bear to wear it then,” Ayyar said.
“A good thing to keep in mind. We have substances here that might serve as well,” Kelemark replied briskly. “Suppose I collect a few. We have not tried that before.” He, too, left them.
Jarvas was staring at the wall again, past Ayyar as if he were now invisible. Tolhron or some kindred half memory again? If they did not have to depend upon such broken patches of Iftin history, they would be better armed.
“It is there—or here—” Jarvas held out his hand palm up and curled the fingers slowly inward as if he would clasp something tight and hold it so. “There is an answer before us in what you have seen, but I cannot discover it! If and if and if—! Are we always to be haunted by ifs?”
XV
There was a pooling of memories, both Iftin and human, among those gathered in the ship. As Ift after Ift was eliminated from that council, Olyron spoke to those left.
“Does it not strike you as strange, brothers, that while we seem in memory to be divided more or less equally between the age of the Green Leaf and the Gray, there are none among us from the Blue, which must have been the golden age of our nation? And that all we have in memory of the Oath between Kymon and That is legend only? If those who made changelings of us could draw from two ages, the vigorous Green, the fading Gray, why not from the third and, by their belief, the best—the Blue? Was that time so far back that they could not evoke the personalities of any living then to ‘haunt’ one of their treasure traps? Or is there an important reason why that age was barred to them?”
“Of what importance is that here and now?” one of the brothers asked.
“I do not know. Save that a memory of Kymon’s time could guide us so well. To go blindly into this struggle is to be chain-bound from the start.”
“If we lack knowledge of Kymon,” Jarvas reminded them, “at least we have that of Jattu Nkoyo.” He nodded to the Ift on his left. Out of all the men questioned only Jeyken, he who had once been Jattu Nkoyo, robot-service tech, had training that might aid them. His was the best off-world memory they could find, and now it must work secondhand into the bargain, lest Jeyken, turning to Nkoyo’s recall, be swept up by That.
“You must not depend too much on what I can give you.” Jeyken spread out his hands as if refusing some task beyond his strength. “What you really need is an engineering tech and his tools.”
“Since we can summon neither out of thin air,” Olyron commented dryly, “we shall do our best with you. Give us what you have, let Drangar learn it from you, going over in detail Ayyar’s observation of what may be needed.”
“I have been thinking of that pillar in the Waste and its beckoning beam,” Jarvas cut in. “It may be near time for supply ships at the port. Do you suppose that signal could bring a ship? These animated space suits came from ships. We found one such landed back in the Waste last season, an old one. There could well have been others.”