the combatants lifted the swords and lunged forward, turning bodies to the side to avoid the duplicated thrusts by their opponents.
The motions were not totally precise copies, however. Straining as best he could, Kestrel was able to twist his blade horizontal as he drew it back. Trembling from the resistance, he turned a cutting edge slightly to the side and sliced into the leather vest of the reflective as the warrior drew back.
Kestrel darted a glance to the lieutenant and saw a trickle of blood on his right arm. Quickly he understood how the battle was waged. The forces of symmetry compelled all of the lunges to be nearly the same. The strikes were aimed to be near-misses, rather than vital thrusts. And then the extra straining effort or slightly longer reach would do the real damage while avoiding a similar wound in return. Kestrel grimaced. He gripped the pommel more tightly, but the strangeness did not go away. If anyone would be at a disadvantage, it would be he.
The four closed again, this time with backhand swipes across the body that stopped just short of the neck. Kestrel strained to push his blade forward while tipping his own head to the side. He felt his arm quiver but proceed no further, while his opponent shook his own blade back and forth in tiny arcs, trying to break it free to strike a finger-width more.
Kestrel took a deep breath and gritted his teeth. Tightening the muscles the length of his arm and twisting his torso, he slowly increased the pressure, realizing that, if all four pushed too hard simultaneously, they would all suffer the same. He saw his blade cover half the distance to the bulging artery of the reflective and then sucked in his breath as a prickly line of pain caressed his own skin. Almost instinctively, he halted his plunge and reversed direction, but the pressure did not release. The grin on his opponent's face broadened. He was trapped immobile and could not move.
Suddenly the huge clockworks at the water's edge sounded in a deep resonant gong. Kestrel heard a cry of surprise. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flurry of motion at the next subnode in line. The clock struck a second time. In a blur, his sword spun from his hand high into the air. Simultaneously he felt the pressure release from his neck.
Kestrel craned his head upward to see his sword and three others arch in a complex swirl and then fall back toward the earth. Spinning with precision, the pommel of one fell back into his grip, just as the first had left it. With a scrape of skin, the pressure returned to the side of his neck. The four swords had been interchanged.
The clock sounded again, and the lieutenant choked out a startled cry. Kestrel saw his thin face contort in puzzlement and then dissolve into one of the reflective's grins. Other cries sounded from all around the node, and then Kestrel felt the pressure on his neck suddenly release. He looked into the face of the warrior across from him and blinked at the sudden change. The smile was gone and the round cheeks somehow thinned into the gaunt expression of the lieutenant. At the edge of his vision, he saw the two remaining warriors in unison disengage from one another and turn to strike Kestrel and the one he now faced from the side.
Kestrel fumbled to turn and meet the new threat. Somehow, his adversary had been switched. The one who faced him fought on the same side. It was just as Abel had tried to explain. The striking of the clock mixed up things spatially in strange ways-even the inner beings between the rotators and reflectives were being transformed!
Kestrel struggled to rotate clockwise. But as he did, the warrior who faced him strained to move in the opposite direction. For what seemed like an eternity, they fought against one another, while the two reflectives smoothly pirouetted and prepared to strike.
On the third gong of the clock, Kestrel heard more cries from around the oasis. First one and then two other rotators suddenly were catapulted into the air. Their bodies were wrenched into unnatural trajectories and hurled toward the horizon with breathtaking force. Almost instantly, reflectives sailed into view and landed in the spots vacated by their foes. At several of the subnodes, the ratio of fighters was shifted to a definite disadvantage for the rotators. Through the tumult of battle, Kestrel saw Astron near the clock key, standing frozen with a blade woodenly in front, not able to fend off thrusts that were being aimed at the demon from both left and right.
The clock sounded again. This time Kestrel recognized Phoebe's shriek intermingled with the rest. He looked skyward and saw her and three reflectives from her subnode rise into the air and then vanish like the rest. Kestrel pushed against the lieutenant straining in the reflective's body and looked hastily back at the sword now being drawn back to strike at his midsection. For an instant, he hesitated, uncertain whether to stop the resistance or to assist the lieutenant's efforts instead, whirling back clockwise, hoping to rotate completely and meet the attack after a full circle.
Before Kestrel could decide, he heard the clock strike a note deeper than before. A sudden blur of nausea welled up within him. The scene before his eyes shimmered and then turned to a blurry gray. He felt a wrenching disorientation and then a sudden rush of heat as if he had a great fever. His body seemed suddenly strange and he staggered and almost fell; the resistance to his motion had been suddenly changed.
The blur dissolved. Kestrel blinked at what he saw. No longer was he at a subnode with three other warriors but near the clock itself. Reflectives on either side were drawing their swords, arms back across their bodies, preparing for deep thrusts toward his chest. He held his own sword pointed directly out in front, unable to move to one side or the other. He saw a net of tiny scales on the back of his hand and running up his forearm into his sleeve. Somehow he was conscious of a stubble of minute bristly hairs in the web of his fingers and between his toes.
Kestrel looked back across the node and saw what looked like his image still locked in synchrony with the lieutenant trying to ward off the attack coming from the side.
It could not be possible! Kestrel tried to deny the thought, but the feeling of all of his senses could not be denied.
'Astron,' he called across the sand. 'Somehow we have been transposed like the others. Do not fight the lieutenant. Turn clockwise with him and swing totally about.'
But he need not have bothered. With the final gong of the clock, Kestrel saw his body vault up into the air and then streak away like the ones before. Grimly he forced his attention back to how he was going to ward off the two reflectives with a sword that was frozen in position in his alien left hand.
CHAPTER TWENTY
ASTRON cautiously felt the sand under the strange fingertips. First there had been the blurring and transformation so unlike ajourney between the realms. And then the flight away from the fighting to this deserted node. He must still his stembrain before he could think further.
Astron tried to flip down his membranes and then frowned in annoyance when they would not come. He shut his eyes and tried to ignore the unsatisfying blackness. Mentally, he reached for the panic that should be upwelling and concentrated on making it still.
His eyes blinked open. He looked about, surprised. There was no panic, no rumble of the base of his skull. He felt an internal discomfort from the flight and jarring landing, and his heart seemed to throb for no apparent reason, but otherwise he was in complete control of his thoughts.
Astron looked about puzzled. He saw Phoebe stagger to standing at the subnode to the left but noticed no other occupants of the oasis. Dimly, he remembered a reflective passing him halfway in his flight, going the other way. He released the sword he still held in his left hand and absently watched it fall at his side. His nose wrinkled as he saw small curly hairs on the back of his hand and arm, providing a wiry cover to a pale, smooth skin.
Kestrel, he thought. What had the human shouted about the transpositions that the reflectives were effecting with the huge clock of the chronoids? He held both arms up and then touched the smoothness of his forehead. He ran a finger over the more or less even row of teeth in his mouth and, reaching to his back, felt no knobs where the degenerate wing stubs should have been.
He breathed deeply and marveled at the feeling of the air coursing in and out of his lungs. A growl sounded in his stomach and a pleasant longing teased at his mind. Unbidden images of meat sizzling on a spit and the smell of fresh bread flitted, real and compelling.
'Oh, Kestrel, thank the random factors that you are here,' Phoebe shouted as she ran to his subnode. 'The
