“Power has returned to you, brother.”
“It has returned.” Ayyar raised his sword with confidence and traced the outline of the door. A bright line followed the touch of that point, easing away the substance. Ayyar put out his hand, and the door fell away, back into the locked chamber, just as Rizak came up with a blaster from one of the suit belts in his hand. Jarvas waved him back, and they stepped into the room.
The occupants lay on the floor as if they had been struck down without warning—women, children, perhaps those Ayyar had seen enter the valley of the mounds—garthpeople all of them, yet his nose told him that among them was an Ift. They found her in a far corner, as if she had been flung there in haste, some broken machine for which That no longer had any use.
Jarvas gathered her up and carried her into the corridor, held her while Ayyar took her two limp hands into his. As she had willed her Mirror-born strength into him, so did he now return that with which he had been newly filled to her. And he heard them chanting softly:
“First the seed, then the seedling.
From the rooting to the growing.
Sap of trunk, stir of leaf,
Ift to Tree, Tree to Ift!”
Kelemark held a flask to her lips, dripping sap drops between them. Then Illylle opened her eyes and looked at them, at first in an unfocused stare, as if she still saw, not them and the burrows, but another place in which she had been long lost and wandering.
“Illylle!” Ayyar called gently, but yet as one arousing a comrade at the first alarm of battle.
Now she saw him, knew him, moved in Jarvas’ hold. And her eyes were anxious.
“Do you not feel it?” her voice was strained and hoarse. “That knows!”
They glanced about them as if they were suddenly beleaguered by Enemy forces, for she was right. That silence, that lack of watchfulness, that emptiness through which they had come had vanished. They were now discovered.
“Come.” Jarvas, his arm about Illylle in support, led them past all the other chambers. Ayyar saw Rizak and Lokatath drop behind, dart into the doors they passed. When they returned, they bore not only the blaster Rizak had already found, but also two more strange weapons, but clearly designed as arms.
All that time they listened for what might march upon them, watched for any sign of movement ahead or behind. But they reached the false wood aware only that That was conscious of them in the midst of Its own place. Ayyar wondered uneasily why the ruler of these burrows held off from attack, why It had not overwhelmed and crushed them as It might have so easily done, for, Mirror power or not, they could not stand up to the off-world weapons in Its arsenal.
There was a change in the place of the wood. That unaltering moon that had been such a relief to Ayyar’s eyes on his first journey across that sinister jungle was gone. The dark was that of a stormy night. But in the dusk his bared sword gave forth a steady glow, and as they descended into the wood, the growth drew back and away from the brand, which it had not done before.
Illylle put forth her left hand and laid it on Ayyar’s shoulder, saying:
“Link, brothers, link. I do not know why it may be, but in this hour that which speaks through the Mirror rises in all of us. Perhaps it may in turn draw upon the very forces here to feed. Link, one to the other, so that it may flow equally through us all!”
Her touch drew nothing out of Ayyar as he had thought that it might. Rather did there follow a new warmth and confidence. They did not take to the trees but went steadily ahead by the shortest path to that tree which aped the Great Ones with such evil travesty.
Things fled from their path or perhaps from the light of the brand, and once they heard a moaning call, like unto an Iftin voice, but with no words they could understand. Then did Illylle turn her head to that portion of the underbrush whence came the sound. And she chanted what could be an answer, a counterspell, or a warning. The words were not of the common speech, and Ayyar knew that they came to her out of the far past when Illylle had been a Sower of the Seed, thus one who dealt with the beginning of life and not its ending, while this place in which they walked negated life with counterfeit shadow and so was to be faced only by the real.
They continued without hindrance, though a part of Ayyar’s mind continued to wonder and be alert for any sign of trouble, to the tree and into that place where stood the lines of Iftin and Larsh, frozen so for eternity.
As they passed between, Illylle and Jarvas, inspired by something Ayyar did not share, out of the old mysteries of which they had once been a part, turned their heads to certain of the Iftin and greeted them by name in such tones that Ayyar half expected those statues (if statues they were in truth) to step from that company and join theirs.
Next they went through the place of machines and down into the corridor that brought them to the vast room of mirrors. There for the first time Illylle faltered. She dropped her hold upon Ayyar and Jarvas, breaking their linkage, holding up her hands before her eyes as if she dared not look upon the racks, crying out:
“These are the children of That! Let them be shattered, and it will come to an end!”
Then, once more, her trembling hands came out to Jarvas and Ayyar, but she would not look upon the mirrors, shutting her eyes tightly, letting them guide her. And she did not cease trembling until they were out of the chamber.
For the first time they heard sounds—from behind and also ahead. They began to run to the place where they had left Drangar and Myrik. What came from there, Ayyar was sure, was the sound of battle. Of a sudden his sword blazed, yet the brightness did not hurt his eyes.
A tangle of wiring twisted and broken had been dragged from the service door into the corridor. And in the midst of that lay Drangar, dead, while, flattened to the floor, among the coils, was Myrik, pinned by beams that laced back and forth. As one, the others threw themselves down behind that tangle that was so poor a shield. Rizak and Jarvas had blasters and began a counter sweep.
Myrik raised his head. “The door—if we can get through—”
They had done well with the tools from the storage place. Ripped out were all the cables and fittings that had once filled the shaft. Ayyar hesitated to descend without knowing what might wait below—yet to remain here, pinned by those ahead, hunted by what moved from behind—
“I go!” Lokatath crawled to the opening, entered feet first, then sank from sight, but slowly, as if there was something in the way of hand and footholds within.
“You—” Ayyar pushed Illylle to that only promise of safety.
She did not protest, but went. And after her, Myrik, and Kelemark followed. Jarvas spoke to Ayyar—
“You!”
He and Rizak still replied to the beams of destruction with the counter rays from their weapons. And now there were lulls in that exchange of fire.
Sheathing his sword, Ayyar wriggled through the opening. The shaft was not as confining as he had expected, and torn-off projections of metal and wire gave him foot and hand supports. Then his feet touched more wires, and he had to work a passage through this obstruction, crawling on hands and knees into a corridor twin to that above. Those who had preceded him were alert and waiting. That force which enlivened the walls of the other portions of the burrows was here much greater. The whole of the space around them throbbed with it. When Ayyar ventured to touch the wall, energy ran painfully up his arm, so that he cried out. Instinctively his other hand had gone to his sword hilt. Now the scabbard that held the blade smoked until he snatched it forth from that covering.
The length of well-forged metal was blue and green, then both colors together, rippling, dripping sparks that vanished as they hit the floor. Ayyar was no longer sure that it was fed by the energy stored in his body or whether it now fed him. But he was not its master. No, now it was the wielder and he the weapon. Under the compulsion it wrought, he turned away from the rest of them and marched back down the corridor.