Andre Norton - Victory on Janus

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Victory on Janus
I
A winter sun was sullen red over Janus. Its bleak rays lit up the Forest that was being destroyed.
Flame bit, grinding machines tore life from soil-deep roots. Quivering branches clicked together a
warning that reached into Iftcan-of-the-trees, the city that once had been.
And in the heart of a mighty tree, Iftsiga, the last of the Great Crowns that still leafed and had sap
blood, the in-dwellers it sheltered stirred from the depths of hibernation.
Larsh! Out of memory nearly as old as Iftsiga itself came that name. Death by the beast men. Out,
brothers, defend Iftcan with sword and heart! Face the Larsh—
Ayyar struggled wildly with the covering over him, forced open unwilling eyes. It was dark here in
the core of the giant tree. The summer festoons of lorgas, the light-larvae, were missing. Like all else they
slept, snug in the crevices of the sheltering bark. But it was no longer quiet. About him like a wall was a
trembling, a throbbing. And though Ayyar could not truly remember having heard it before, he recognized
the alarm of the Forest Citadel.
"Awake! Danger comes!" Every throb of that great pulse beat through him. But it was so hard to
move. The lethargy that had gripped him and his kin in the fall, that had brought them to shelter and sleep,
had not lifted gradually as nature intended. Ayyar was not yet ready to face the new life of spring.
Painfully he crawled from his nest of mats.
"Jarvas? Rizak?" His voice was hoarse and rusty as he called to those sharing this chamber. The
force of the warning grew stronger, urging him to—flight!
Flight—not battle— That from Iftsiga, the stronghold that even the ancient Enemy could not
reduce? Had the great tree not been seeded in the legendary time of the Blue Leaf, been grown to shelter
the race of Iftin in the day of the Green, and of the Gray of the last disaster, outlasting the wrath of the
Larsh, preserved to help awaken the Iftin anew? This was Iftsiga, the Eternal—yet the warning was—
"Flee! Flee!"
Ayyar crept to the nearest wall of the tree, put his shaking hands on that living surface. Now it was
warm beneath his cold flesh, as if its life arose to fever pitch.
"Jarvas?" He clawed his way up, swaying. There was movement in the other two bed places.
"The Larsh?" That question from the gloom on his right.
"Not so. Remember, the day of the Larsh is past."
Once again his memory had to be welded—for he bore the memories of two different men, as did
all those now within Iftsiga. In an earlier time, he had been Naill Renfro, an off-world labor slave. Ayyar's
lips drew into a snarl in reaction to that memory. As Naill he had found a treasure within the woodland.
And because he had dug it up, the dreaded Green Sick had struck him down.
From that terrible illness he had emerged as an Ift, green-skinned, hairless, forest-attuned, provided
with the tattered memory of Ayyar, Captain of the Outer Guard in the last days of Iftcan. And as
Ayyar-Naill he had found others like himself—Ashla of Himmer's garth or settlement, who became Illylle,
one-time priestess of the Mirror, Jarvas-Pate, Lokatath-Derek, Rizak-Monro, Kelemark-Torry.
Over the South Sea were still others who had earlier undergone the same change. But they were
such a very few, for not all off-worlders were to be drawn into the net of the buried treasures set by the
first Iftin-kind at their dying; only those who had the right temperament. And none of the changelings
were truly whole. In them was an uneasy balance; one past set against the other. So was he now
sometimes Ayyar, sometimes Naill, though for longer periods now Naill slept and he could draw upon
the knowledge of Ayyar.
"There is death abroad." Ayyar spoke now. "The warning—"
"True. And the time of sleep not yet done." Jarvas answered him. "But we must have the awakening
draught—"
In the gloom Jarvas crawled on hands and knees to the opposite wall, his hands fumbling with what
was set into the living fabric of the tree.
"Ah—Iftsiga denies us not!" His cry was one of wonder and hope.
Ayyar lurched across the chamber. Jarvas drank from the spout set in the wall, not waiting for a
cup, but catching the sweep sap in his hands, sucking it avidly from his palms. Ayyar followed his
example.
The chill in him vanished, warmth sped along his veins, spread through his body. He could move
easily, and his mind cleared.
"What is it?" Rizak crept up to drink in turn.
"Death—death to Iftsiga!" Jarvas stood tall. "Listen!"
The murmur, the crackle of branch against branch, was a struggle of the ancient tree to
communicate with the Iftins—or the half-Iftins—now within it.
Jarvas swung around. "From the east it comes!"
To the east lay the clearings of the garths, the settlements that were black death blots in the Forest.
There, too, were the buildings of the port where off-world spacers set down.
"Why—what?" Rizak turned, refreshed from his sap drink. "They do not clear land in winter, and
this is not yet spring."
"We shall find the answer only by seeking it," Jarvas replied. "Iftsiga would not wake us, except in
extremity. This is grave danger—"
"The others—" Ayyar went to the ladder which led both down and up in the center of the chamber,
linking all levels of the tree tower.
"Jarvas? Ayyar?" A soft call from below, even as he set foot on the ladder rungs. He looked down
into a face turned up to his.
"Haste, oh, make haste!" Illylle's voice arose. "We must haste!" She moved before him, descending
to yet another level where many small chests stood stacked against the walls.
There were the others, Kelemark and Lokatath, pulling at those boxes, moving in frantic haste to
drag them to the ladder which led on down, deep into the earth and root chambers of Iftsiga.
"The seeds!" Illylle lifted one of the chests. "We must save the seeds!"
With her words a sharp urgency struck Ayyar also. Every one of those chests contained seed for
the regrowth of the Iftin. In them were the treasure traps to draw new changelings into their company.
Should anything destroy these chests their dream of a new nation would die. Yes, above all, the seeds
must be saved.
"Where?"
His night-oriented sight had grown keen since the sap-drink, and he could read the sorrow on
Illylle's face.
"Into the root chambers—"
Dreadful indeed must be the peril! To use the root chambers meant that Iftsiga had no hope of
survival. How could Illylle be sure—yet she was.
"The seeds—" She turned to summon Jarvas and Rizak now on the ladder.
Jarvas nodded decisively. "The root chambers." He did not ask, he ordered.
So they toiled, using their new-born strength, stripping Iftsiga of the meaning it had held as the
Citadel during ages more than Ift or man could reckon, carrying those precious chests, each with a
sleeping memory and Ift personality, to the farthest limit of the long roots and, in doing so, killing the tree
that had been the refuge and shelter of their race. And ever, as they worked so feverishly, the warnings
heightened; the need for speed enveloped them, so that they ran, pushed, carried as they cleared one
chamber, two, three, a fourth—
Then they were done, and Jarvas and Illylle, working together, sealed the cramped ways through
which they had crawled and pushed their burdens, using the substance of the tree, with earth and certain
words to bind with power.
Then they came up into the entrance chamber from which they could emerge upon a limb and let
down a ladder to the ground. There they gathered supplies to make packs. Jarvas took command.
"Iftsiga dies; by what means we shall learn. But in its dying, may it also fight against those who
destroy it. Thus—"
He and Illylle went, one to each wall, laying their hands against the tree's now shuddering surface, to
speak almost as one:
"Let your spirit not depart gladly, Great One,
But harshly to those who come.
Of all the days, may this be the worst
For those who ill use you.
Die in battle; make of your branches swords,
Of your twigs needles to tear,
Of your sap poison to burn,
Of your trunk a crushing weight.
Die as you have lived, Ift-friend, Ift-protector,
That your seedlings may spring anew.
This be our promise, Iftsiga—
Your seed shall sprout with ours.
Ift-blood, sap-blood, shall be as one.
Ift to tree, tree to Ift!"
Around them the tree swayed; a sound came from trunk and branch that was not a groan but rather
the growl of beast aroused.
Then Jarvas gave his orders. "We must know the enemy, whence he comes, what he strives to do
here. Scouts to east and north! And you, Sower of the Seed"—to Illylle he gave the old title—"to that
which is our help, to the Mirror, that mayhap you can call upon what lies there to our aid—"
She shook her head slowly. "Once I did so, yes, but twice perhaps not. Illylle is not wholly Illylle. I
have too many memories not rooted in Ift. But what I can do, I shall. And"—she faced them—"brothers,
let not death choose you. Ill-faced may be our stars, but still are we the new seeds, do not forget that!"
It was night, the time of the Iftin, as they came into the open. Around them was a flow of movement.
Peecfrens slid swiftly along branches, leaping in bounds from one limb to another, their fur silver in the
moonlight. Borfunds grunted and snorted below. Flying things sought the air. All the Forest dwellers were
on the move. Most of them had roused from hibernation, but they were alert. None of them need Iftin
fear. But other things, deadly enemies, might also be on the move.
"Hooo-ruurrru—"
It was a welcome cry that was also a querulous complaint. A large bird settled beside the Iftin,
turning its tufted head to survey them sleepily, sullenly. The quarrin was an old hunting companion. Ayyar
opened his mind to its thoughts.
"Break—tear—kill!" Red savagery answered him.
"Who?"
"Things that crawl! Hunt the false ones! Kill, kill, always kill!"
"Why—?"
The quarrin hissed, was gone on wide-spread wings.
"Things that crawl," Rizak repeated. "Earth-grubbers?" Out of his off-world past he made tentative
identification.
Machines could alter the face of any planet, given the time and the determination of human will. But
such machines were few on Janus. This world of trees had been settled by the Sky Lovers, a dour
religious sect who worked with their hands and with the aid of animals, refusing to allow machines
anywhere but at the port site. Earth-grubbers were not for Janus. Unless, since the Iftin had sought their
winter sleep, some powerful change had been wrought in the world they wished to reclaim as their own.
"The port lies northeast," Kelemark said. "But why would they be using machines? The forces there
keep within their own boundaries. And—in the winter—the Settlers would not be hunting 'monsters.'"
No, the Settlers on the garths would not stir after those they called "monsters" and who enticed
hunters into the Forest.
"The garthmen would not use machines." Lokatath spoke positively. He had been one of them
before the Green Sick change.
"Guessing will not provide us with the truth," Ayyar-Naill returned. He had been a soldier; his
answer was action.
"Do not play your life too boldly," Illylle called after him.
He smiled at her. "I have been knocking on the door of death since I first walked this world. But I
do not throw aside a sword when I go to face the kalcrok," he said, naming the most fearsome of the
Forest enemies.
"Split up," Jarvas said as they moved through the frosted vegetation. "Then return to the Way to the
Mirror. I think that is our safeguard."
They became a part of the Forest, each to find his own path north and east. Fewer animals passed
now; some moving sluggishly as if their awaking from hibernation had been so recent they had not had a
chance to drink sap.
Ayyar's nostrils expanded, cataloguing scents, wary for the stink of kalcrok. There was the stench
of man to beware of also—for man to an Iftin was an offense, carrying with him the smell of the death he
dealt to Forest life—and perhaps they must now quest also for the odor of machines.
Kalcrok he did not scent. But man—yes—there was the taint of man on the air, to be easily trailed.
He passed two of the Great Crowns, but these were bone-white, long since dead—probably from the
time the Larsh stormed Iftcan. Ayyar had been one of the defenders, but no small spark of memory
remained past his first standing to arms. Had that first Ayyar "died" during that attack? They had no
knowledge of how the personalities they now wore had been set within the treasure traps and then
transferred by the Green Sick to off-world men and women. But Ayyar had been a captain of the city
guard in the old days and now it would seem that Ayyar-Naill must play the same role.
The smell of man now mingled with an even worse stench as a pre-dawn wind puffed about him. It
was the smell of burning, such as the garthmen did to clear their lands.
Dawn was near. Ayyar reached into an inner pocket of his green-brown-silver tunic. Kelemark,
who had once been the medico known as Torry Ladion, had devised a daytime aid for light-dazzled Iftin
eyes, goggles made of several layers of dried leaves. So equipped they could travel in all but the brightest
sunlight.
That thick stench of burning could mask the odor of men. He must now depend upon sight. Around
him the saplings, the brush, were leafless. Patches of blue-tinted snow lay in shadows. The air warmed as
tendrils of smoke wove ribbons of mist from smoldering mats of blackened fibers. He looked through a
shriveled screen into widespread desolation and again his lips were a-snarl.
When they had gone to sleep, the river had divided the remnants of Iftcan from the land of the
garths. But now burnt paths stretched well back into the Forest. Each ran spear straight from a heat
beam. This was no garth work, but that of machines. Why? The officials at the port had no reason to
clear land, in fact they were forbidden to.
Ayyar flitted along the edge of the ash-powdered strip, now and then covering nose and mouth with
his hand as he passed some noisome pocket. The beaming had not been at random, but laid down with
definite purpose. It was plainly meant as an assault against the whole of the Forest.
He now fronted open charred ground on which stood a machine, a dark box squatting sullenly on
treads to take it across rough and broken ground. Farther off was an earth-grubber, its snout at present
raised and motionless, but behind it lay soil, gouged and ravaged.
Dawn was very bright to Iftin eyes. Even with the goggles on Ayyar squinted. Beyond the machines
was a hemisphere, as if the tortured soil had breathed forth a stained, dun-colored bubble. A camp!
Again this was no garthman's shelter, but the kind the port men brought with them. Ayyar called
upon Naill memory as he searched for any official symbol that might identify the camp.
After the discovery of Janus the planet had been given to the Karbon Combine for exploitation,
almost a hundred years ago. But they had done little with it. Then a galactic struggle, which had torn apart
old alliances, devastated worlds, and made of Naill Renfro one of the homeless wanderers, had given the
Sky Lovers a chance to buy out the Karbon interest, since the Combine had gone bankrupt. The war
had given a death blow to many thrusts of space expansion and cut back for a time mankind's outward
flow. Janus, with its wide, thickly forested continents, its narrow seas, its lack of any outstanding natural
riches, had been easily relinquished to those who wanted it as a homeland.
Once it was assigned to the garthdwellers, off-world powers would have no reason to meddle with
the planet. Their jurisdiction extended no farther than the port. Yet now they were carrying on a
systematic battle against the Forest.
There was no symbol on the bubble-tent, or on the other two smaller ones nearer the river. Ayyar
settled himself to wait and watch. He knew the danger of over-confidence; yet he was sure that no man
in that camp, or any garth of the tree-hating Settlers, could match an Ift in woodcraft. The dogs of the
garths were to be feared, but here he did not smell dog.
The light grew stronger. He glanced back now and then at the Forest. The dead Great Crowns
were bones. Around their huge trunks, roots spread out in high buttresses, taller by far than his head,
dark caverns between their walls. In the old days one beat upon those, and the call would be repeated,
so that in moments signals ran from one end of Iftcan to the other. But if one sounded such an alarm
today, who was to answer? Unless troubled ghosts would gather, unable to defend their graves. Scraps
of Ayyar memory stirred.
"Take into your hand a dead warrior's sword and beware, lest his spirit come to claim it—and you!"
Naill had such a sword. It lay smooth and straight against him now, its hilt ready to his hand, its
baldric across his shoulder. Naill had taken the sword, so he was Ayyar, to be claimed by Ayyar's
battles.
There was movement at the nearer of the bubble shelters. A man came out. It was no
garthman—he wore no brush of beard, nor their sad-dull, coarse clothing. He had on the uniform of port
security. Then thiswas an official expedition. Whathad happened during Iftin slumber?
Ayyar measured by eye the distance to the machines, to the camp. The ground was far too clear to
risk any advance on his part. And that physical and mental change that had so forcibly altered Naill into
Ayyar had also planted deep in him a revulsion toward his former species. Even to plan close contact
with them made him giddy with waves of sickness.
Yet the only means of learning the truth was to get within listening distance of those men. And once
they manned the machines he would not dare to linger—there was too good a chance of being caught by
the sweep of a heat beam.
More men came out of the sleeping quarters. Two wore guards' uniforms, the others the clothing of
port workmen. But, Ayyar noted, they all went armed. Not with the stunners that were the usual planet
side weapons—but with blasters, only issued on inhabited worlds under the most imperiled conditions!
That was another reason to keep well out of range. Iftin swords were not equal to blasters.
The men went into another bubble—mess, probably. Then Ayyar heard the hum of a flitter. He
froze under his change-color cloak. It was coming from the port and would set down not too far from his
place of concealment.
Two men dropped from its cabin door. They walked, not to the camp, but to the beamer, one of
them sighting along the dead paths it had cleared.
"—take us months to char this off. There is a whole continent to clear!"
He who did the sighting glanced over his shoulder. "We cannot wait for off-world help. You saw
the Smatchz garth. And that was the third. As long as they have these forests for cover, we cannot track
them."
"Butwhat are they?"
The other shrugged. "Ask me after we catch one. As far as theirword is concerned they are green
devils. I"—he hesitated, running one hand along the ray tube almost caressingly—"was on Fenris and
Lanthor during the war—and the Smatchz garth was worse than anything there. We face the hardest kind
of war, hit and run attacks where the enemy has all the advantage. The only way to drive those green
demons out is to blast away their cover!"
"Well, the sooner we get to it then . . ."
They turned back to the camp. Ayyar watched them stop a little way from the shelters. There was a
shimmer in the air; they stepped forward, once more the shimmer—but it was behind them. A force field!
The camp was ringed by a force field! Which meant that those inside that barrier were guarded against
some greatly feared danger.
Green demons from the forest? Ayyar glanced down at his own slender hand, at its green flesh.
Could they have meant Iftin? No, that could not be. The only Iftin, except for those wintering across the
South Sea, were those who had sheltered in Iftsiga. The "green demons" could not be Iftin—but then
who or what?
II
For the Iftin there was an older, greater-to-be-feared Enemy than any from garth or port, That
Which Abides. Of old the Larsh had been Its army, issuing forth from the noisome Waste. Yet in that
same grim desert stood an Ift refuge, the sanctuary of the Mirror of Thanth. Now under the sun,That's
weapon, Ayyar entered the time-worn road leading to the crater-cradle Mirror.
Could they summon again the Power of Thanth? Illylle and Jarvas had called up that force months
ago, to battle by storm and flood the servants ofThat , pinning the Enemy back into Its own place. And
the flood that had spilled over the rock lips of the Mirror has washed across part of the waste, cleansing
much of it from evil.
So much the Mirror had done for them. What more it might accomplish they did not know. Could it
be used against off-world men and machines, bound by no natural law of Janus? To each planet its own
mysteries, powers that were tools or weapons for its natives, but that had no meaning for invaders from
other stars. To the Iftin, the Mirror and that which acted through it were things of majesty and force. To
others this might only be a lake of water in a basin of rock.
"Ayyar—"
He raised his head, for his eyes had been on the age-worn pavement under foot.
"Kelemark," he acknowledged. So he was not the first here.
As Ayyar, Kelemark wore cloak and pack and carried sword. But over his arm lay a length of
cloth, stained and torn. From it came a smell that wrinkled Ayyar's nose.
It was a smell, not of man, nor the taint of machine—this was something else—insidious. So, having
once filled his nostrils, the smell remained to poison each following breath. Yet otherwise that rag
appeared a portion of Iftin cloak, for it was green-brown-silver, each color flowing into the other.
"What—?" Ayyar pointed to it.
"I found it caught on a thorn bush." Kelemark stretched out his arm. Suddenly the rag writhed,
twisted as if it had life. With a startled exclamation Kelemark threw it from him. Now the odor was
stronger, and they both moved back, standing instinctively on guard.
Ayyar's sword was out, though he did not remember drawing it. He held the blade, not with its
point to an invisible foe, but gripping it just below the hilt, slanted skyward.
"Iftin sword, Iftin brand—
Light fails, Iftin stand.
Cool of dark, fire of noon—
Green of tree, evil's doom!"
From his mixed memory came those words, as did the movements of his sword, back and forth, up
and down. He was no Mirrormaster, nor Sower, nor Tender, nor Guardian—but a warrior. However,
there were ancient safeguards againstThat as all men knew.
Now the sword he held blazed and dripped green fire, and those droplets ran along the ground to
encircle the rag. Yet the fire did not destroy; it only enwalled. He heard a cry from the stairway that led
to the Mirror, the thud of running feet.
Illylle came in haste, and with her, Jarvas. But when they saw what lay upon the pavement, fire
imprisoned, they halted.
"Who found this and where?" Jarvas asked.
"It was caught in a thorn bush near the burning," Kelemark answered. "I thought—I feared it was of
ours. Then, when I picked it forth, I knew it was not, but that it was important."
Illylle dropped to her knees, staring at the rag. From her belt pouch she brought a white sliver of
wood as long as her first finger. Though water had ofttimes washed this way, yet still were there pockets
of sand, and one of these was nearby. She pointed the end of her sliver to that which lay within the ring of
fire; then she touched that same end to the sand.
Her hold was loose, merely designed to keep the sliver erect. Now it moved, marking the sand.
And the symbol that appeared there was a tree with three large leaves—Ift! But the sliver was not yet
done, for it jerked between Illylle's supporting fingers, scoring out the leaves it had just drawn, altering
them into angular bare branches.
Ayyar studied the marks. Those sharp branches, he had seen their like before.
"Ift—not—Ift—but of the Enemy!" Jarvas half whispered. "What is the meaning of this?"
He looked to Illylle who studied the drawing on the sand. She shook her head.
"This"—she pointed to the rag—"has the semblance of Ift. Yet it is of the White Forest! I do not
understand." She dropped the sliver and put her hand to her head. "So little can I remember! If we were
of the true blood, more would be clear. But of this I am sure, what lies there is wholly evil and a weaving
of deception."
Jarvas turned to the men. "What did you learn?"
Kelemark reported first. "They are on this side of the river, first burning and then grubbing. They are
determined to erase the Forest—to kill it and its life."
"There is a camp of port men," Ayyar added. "And—" he repeated the conversation he had
overheard.
"Green demons raiding garths!" Jarvas broke in. "But—weare the monsters their ignorance has
feared for years. And we of Iftsiga are the only ones this side of the South Sea."
"There is one way to learn more—" Illylle arose. "I shall water-question the Mirror. But"—she
looked to Kelemark—"do you remain here, for until you are purified you may not approach Thanth."
She put no prohibition on Ayyar, so he followed as she and Jarvas climbed the stairway that led to
the ledge above the silent, brooding lake in the crater cup, the repository or focus of a power they did
not understand.
Once more Illylle went to her knees on the edge of that ledge, stretching out her arms over the
water.
"Blessing upon the water which is of life," she said and then fell silent. She stooped to wet a finger
tip, and this she raised to her lips that her words might give them the needed answer, her mind now open
to the Mirror. When she spoke, she did not look at her companions but across the lake, and upon her
was the aura of one who is a vessel of power.
"Ift is not Ift. Evil wears the semblance of right. One defeat in battle does not end a war. The seed is
endangered before the sowing—"
To Ayyar it made little sense. But he saw that Jarvas, perhaps by the power of interlocking thought
the Mirrormasters once had, gained knowledge, his expression now being grimly dark. He put forth his
hand to lay on Illylle's head. She blinked as an awareness of self flowed in.
"Come!" Jarvas brought them back to the walled road. Now Rizak and Lokatath were also there.
"Jarvas, there are Iftin—" Lokatath began.
"Not Iftin, true Iftin!" Illylle cried. "They may wear Iftin shapes, but they do the will of the White
Forest, not the Green!"
Jarvas nodded. "It is so. That has not been defeated, only awakened. It has set the off-worlders
against us in this manner."
"They have overrun garths," Lokatath reported. "I hid in the river rocks and heard those at the camp
speak of it. They have slain and destroyed, these false Iftin, in a manner to arouse garthmen and port
against them, so that old differences are forgotten and all off-worlders unite to wipe out the Forest and
any Iftin found there—without mercy."
"The Forest is very large," began Illylle. Then she looked to Jarvas. "Can they really do this thing?"
"There are few of them here now," he replied soberly. "But they must already have summoned
off-planet help. Yes, they can do this, if such aid comes."
Ayyar's hand fell to his sword hilt. "IfThat uses them, asIt used the Larsh—"
"Yes," Jarvas agreed. "It was after my time that the Larsh became the weapons of That. My
memory is of the Green Leaf, not the Gray. Now, it seemsIt would use these off-worlders in the same
fashion, perhaps to the same victorious end."
"I wonder"—Ayyar put into words his thoughts—"doesThat always have to use others as tools?
There was the space suit that herded Illylle and me into captivity—we never discovered what wore it.
Was it not the same whenThat took you prisoner before us? Those wytes, Its hounds, hunted us, and we
felt the drawing of Its power when we escaped to the Mirror. In Ayyar's day the Larsh were sent to pull
down Iftcan. Now the off-worlders are provoked into serving Its purpose. But never doesThat venture
forth Itself. Why? What do you remember from the Oath of Kymon?"
"As to the nature ofThat ?" Kelemark asked. "That is a thought, Jarvas. IfIt is so strong, why—?"
"Kymon went into the White Forest and strove withThat and forced upon It the Oath, which held
during the Blue Leaf and the Green, to be broken in the Gray." Illylle repeated well-known history.
"And the nature ofThat which he found in the White Forest?" Ayyar persisted.
She shook her head. "Jarvas?" she appealed in turn.
"Nothing," he replied. "It uses mental control; we all know that. Beyond—" He shrugged. "Now,
apparently, It also has Iftin, or beings resembling Iftin, fighting forIt . Those Iftin we must seek."
"Our noses should lead us." Rizak nodded to the rag.
"Meanwhile, the Forest dies," Illylle pointed out. "What has been our hope? To raise up a new
nation, then seek our freedom from an off-world colony under the law. If they continue to destroy our
home, there will be no chance for us ever to treat with them."
"She is right," Rizak agreed. "We have to make them understand what is really going on before they
reach a point of no return for any of us!"
"And just how will you do this?" challenged Lokatath.
"By capturing one of the false Iftin," Ayyar said, "and proving the difference."
They stared at him, and then Jarvas laughed shortly. "Simple, yet perhaps the best solution. So now
we go ahunting for the Enemy, and I think that means prowling along the river."
"Can you foresee their trail there?" Kelemark asked Illylle.
"Not in this. While they move, they are encased in their master's protection, and I have not the skill
to break that. We must do this by eye, nose, and ear."
It was decided to follow the shore south from the entrance to the Mirror, along the river. Night
would favor them most, since Iftin senses were nocturnal and already the day was far sped. Thus,
wrapped in cloaks, they lay against the road wall and slept.
Swiftly at dusk they sped along their chosen route. Winter-dried reeds, far higher than their heads,
made a small woodland. But these beds they skirted. The change in temperature from day to night, as
always, altered odors. Some were sharper; others faded. There were sounds; the scratching which was
an earth-lizard dragging a river worm back and forth across gravel, the calls of hunters winged and
four-footed. Once they crouched in silence, waiting while one of the great carnivores swung its muzzle
under the water at the river's edge, champing jaws meanwhile, to wash out its mouth after feeding. And
the fresh blood smell of that meal reached them.
But no unusual scent tainted the air. The land the Mirror had cleansed was now behind them, and
the darkness of the true Waste lay to their right. In the north the sky was bright.
"Now they beam at night." Lokatath stated the obvious.
"They grow impatient or more afraid," Kelemark replied.
Was Iftsiga already burning? Ayyar wondered. And what of the seed chests? Would their hiding
place among the roots of the Citadel be deep enough to protect them from the earth-tearing snout of the
grubber?
Water vapor clung to the river at this point. And here they picked up the trail they sought. Lokatath
spat, and Ayyar tasted bitter moisture gathering in his own mouth. The stench from the rag had been bad,
but this was infinitely worse. Drawn into one's nostrils, it seemed to fill one's lungs with a lingering,
loathsome residue.
"Fresh?" Rizak commented.
"Yes, and leading over river to the garths."
Ice-rimmed logs and rocks, their surfaces just above the winter-shrunken stream, made a bridge of
sorts. The Iftin used it.
"Ah—" The soft exclamation from Illylle drew Ayyar's attention. She was frowning, her head turning
from right to left and then back again, as one who tried to discover some half-forgotten landmarks.
"What is it?"
"This way, does it not lead to Himmer's?"
West and south— Yes, not far from here he, newly Ift himself, had seen the transformation of Ashla
Himmer into Illylle, had aided her through the worst of that discovery that she was now alien to her kind.
Though she had not believed—not at first—that she was alien. She had insisted upon returning to her
garth, to seek out the younger sister she cherished. Only when the repulsion each felt now for the other
had been made plain had she been convinced that kin of Ashla were not of Illylle's. Yet perhaps now a
faint stir of that old affection worked in her.
Over the river the trail did not run straight. It was almost as if that which they hunted had quested,
like a hound seeking a quarry of its own. Then, far away, sounded the barking of garth dogs. From
Himmer's? Ayyar could not be sure. But he hoped it lay more to the west.
Now the trail straightened, and they fell into a half run natural to Iftin. A woodland engulfed them
though this was not the Forest. Yet it was good, like unto a drink of cool water in the day's heat, to have
trees close about them—bare of leaf, winter-ravaged as those were.
This was a forest already emptied of many of its inhabitants for garth clearings had gnawed at it
steadily to north and east. And the creatures that were wary and shy had long since departed. Not all,
however. Some still holed up in tree or ground burrows. Now these slept through the dead season.
Strong was the scent and louder the clamor of the dogs. At least those sentinels must long ago have
aroused their masters. Remembering the fate of other garths, they would be doubly alert. Armed with
blasters, they should be able to turn back an attack.
The Iftin party must take care. It would do no good to be caught in some fight and mistaken for the
Enemy. Ayyar caught Jarvas' sharp hand orders, dividing them into two parties, right and left. It was right
Ayyar turned, Illylle beside him, Rizak a little behind.
They detoured about the clutching, dangerous branches of a large thorn tree. Now the scent was
not so strong. Ayyar sniffed another odor, the death that surrounded each garth where tree, bush, all
green life died in ragged cuttings gouged out of the true beauty of Janus. And he knew again hatred for
those who thus slew.
Was this Himmer's garth? He asked Illylle. She looked about her. But now she shook her head.
"This is too far east. Perhaps it is Tolferg's." But was she sure or only wished it so?
It seemed to Ayyar that the barking had lessened. Fewer hounds giving tongue? Now, flickering
light among the trees—torches?
They slackened pace and kept to cover until they looked through a screen of withered brush, out
over raw land where huge stumps stood, charred from the dogged burning of fires kept going for weeks,
even months.
The light came from torches blazing on a stockade wall. Behind that was the garth building. Several
of the torches had been pitched down to set fire to dried material heaped in the open, so that the stretch
of cleared land was as light as the besieged could make it, though every half-burned stump provided a
pool of shadow. With their hind-quarters pressed against the now barred gate of the garth enclosure
stood four hounds, showing their fangs to the night. They had not come to that stand easily. Wounds bled
on their flanks and shoulders, and another dog lay struggling to win to its feet but unable to do so.
Between the edge of the wood and the gate lay at least six more of those vicious four-footed
guards. It looked as if they had been loosed to buy time for their masters.
"To the right, beside the forked stump," Illylle whispered.
The black clot of stump had been fire-hollowed into an unusual shape, its center portion burnt
away, but the two outer rims rising in projections, giving the remaining stub the appearance of an animal
head, ears up, alert to any sound.
Between those ears was movement, a rounded shadow arising for an instant. From the rear the
skulker looked Ift, cloak spread out in the concealing sweep Ayyar used upon need. The head
turned—Ift! Illylle's fingers tightened on Ayyar's arm. The counterfeit could not be detected, at least not
here and now. Rizak whispered.
"CouldThat have captured some of the old true race, made them Its servants?"
"Who knows? But this is of the Enemy." Of that Ayyar was sure. "How many?"
He searched the ground with hunter's eyes and used his nose to locate five more before him. Since
they were certainly not all bunched here, perhaps double or triple that number might be abroad.
Illylle drew a sharp breath. "They wait—for what?"
A scream answered her, such a cry as only extreme fear and pain might tear from a human throat.
Out of the brush to their right stumbled a weaving figure, rags of clothing still about it, but not enough to
conceal that it was a woman. Shrieking, she staggered on between the hidden attackers who made no
move to pull her down.
"She is their key to the gate," Rizak said.
Would it have worked? Perhaps, had not the hounds moved. Two of them sprang, almost as
one—not at the creeping shadows, but for the woman. Their fangs ended her screams as she was borne
to the ground. Then the hounds howled as ray beams from the stockade crisped them. Their masters
must have believed them mad.
One of the false Iftin sprang into the open, caught an outflung arm of the woman, hurled the body
back into the shadow of a stump where two of his fellows pounced upon it and dragged it away with
them.
摘要：

VictoryonJanusIAwintersunwassullenredoverJanus.ItsbleakrayslituptheForestthatwasbeingdestroyed.Flamebit,grindingmachinestorelifefromsoil-deeproots.QuiveringbranchesclickedtogetherawarningthatreachedintoIftcan-of-the-trees,thecitythatoncehadbeen.Andintheheartofamightytree,Iftsiga,thelastoftheGreatCro...

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