Louise Cooper - Indigo 06 - Avatar (12 page)

“
Fe
—&dquo; Then something choked the word off in her throat before she could utter it. The chanting stopped, the drums stopped. So suddenly that Indigo could barely comprehend what had happened, there was silence. No, not quite silence. She could hear the gentle slap of water on the lakeshore, licking at the red dust. And a moan, abruptly curtailed. She knew who that was: the murderess; it could only be she. Indigo blinked, looked again at the lake and saw what had loomed out of the mist and now waded through the shallows toward dry land.

A solitary woman came first. She was old, and smiling the awful smile of incurable madness. Her eyes burned like cold, dead stars in her skull, and she reached out clawing hands toward two young men who huddled together on the bank, her expression filled with ineffable but utterly insane love. Indigo heard their heartbroken cries of “
Mother! Mother
!” and had to look away as they took her corpse’s hands and kissed them over and over again.

Next came a young man, naked. Indigo looked at his face, at the sores twisting what had been a handsome mouth into a festering parody, at the blackly swollen tongue, at the film that dulled his staring eyes. His body shone slickly with the sweat of fever, and he trembled, trembled even as his distraught wife rushed forward and flung herself down in the shallows to clasp and embrace his ankles.

Indigo was beginning to understand. As they had died, so they returned: mad, diseased, fever-ridden, as they had been in the last moments of their earthly life. Even as she realized this, the third revenant emerged, and this time she had to look away, for what stalked from the water was a man who held his own severed head cradled in his arms. She heard the cries of his brothers, who sought to avenge him, but she couldn’t bring herself to watch their reunion, and only when the gruesome figure was lost in the melee, did she dare to raise her eyes again.

She was in time to see the children. They came out of the lake hand in hand, and their small bodies were stained crimson with the blood that had flowed from their cut throats. Their mother began to scream, and her screams redoubled as, one after another, the children raised their hands and pointed at her in clear accusation. They didn’t speak; their windpipes had been severed with their jugular veins, and they had no voices now. But their hands, and their looks, were more eloquent than any words.

After the children there were many others, though none quite so ghastly. Inured by now, Indigo watched them with detached and dispassionate fascination, as though a part of herself refused to accept the reality of what she was seeing and had dubbed it a dream. At last, though, there were no more. The wailing and the crying and the exhortations and the protests had dulled to a murmur, like the soporific drone of bees in a drowsing garden; she was aware of it and yet not aware; her surroundings were remote, a little unreal.

Then, over the lake; the mist swirled suddenly and the waters were stirred once more.

Grimya whimpered, and the sound so close by startled Indigo out of her stupor. She looked at the lake, and then she saw the last revenant of all. His skin was deadly pale, shocking contrast to those who had come before. His long black hair was matted, sweat-soaked. He moved like an old man racked with arthritis—or a young man bound by chains that his soul could hardly bear—and as he limped toward the shore, Indigo saw the network of lacerations that scarred his skin: arms, legs, face, every part of him, the searing and savage work of a hundred thousand poisoned thorns.

She knew she had cried out aloud. On another level, another plane, from another world, she saw shocked faces turn toward her in the torchlight, saw Uluye’s fanatical delight as Indigo—or something beyond Indigo—uttered a howl without words. The pale, hunched figure at the lake’s edge paused. Then he reached out toward her, across the red sand, across the physical gulf that separated them, and he called to her by the name that she had been compelled to renounce so many years ago when the Tower of Regrets had been breached, when she had brought evil on her home and family and loved ones, when the demons had entered her world. Her true name. The name by which he had known her in the happy days before she was Indigo.

“Anghara....”

The thing that had been trying to burst from Indigo’s soul shattered and imploded within her, and she flung her head back and screamed with all the strength she possessed.

“Fenran!”

The world vanished.

“I can’t see you. Fenran, I can’t see you! Where are you?“

Darkness; silence. She could feel her body, though it didn’t seem to have its familiar physical dimensions. The blackness was so intense that her inner vision invented colors, striving to create some sense of orientation out of the bewildering dark.

Then a voice said “I am here.”

“
Where
?” She had spun around before she realized that it was not Fenran’s voice, but that of a stranger, and that it had not spoken aloud, but in her head.

“Here. Behind you. Before you. To your left and to your right. Above and below. Look, Indigo. Look, and you will find me.”

Someone was breathing close by. She heard the steady
hush-hush
, not in her mind this time, but real, tangible. The claustrophobic air shifted momentarily as though something had disturbed it, and a faint smell impinged on Indigo’s nostrils. What was it Grimya had said in describing what had happened in the cliff-top temple?
I smelled death, like rotten meat
. Yes, this too had the whiff of decay, of putrefaction....

She drew just enough breath to speak. “You are not Fenran.”

“Fenran?” There was faint, chilly amusement in the query that seeped through her mind. Indigo felt a peculiar blend of anger and fear begin to form within her.

“Yes, Fenran. I saw him. I saw him coming out of the lake.”

“Ah. The lake has many secrets, which it does not easily give up. People have many dreams by the lakeside, and dreams are not always reliable.”

The smell was changing, sweetening, taking on a quality redolent of the incense the priestesses burned at their ceremonies. Indigo inhaled and felt smoke fill her throat and lungs.

“I don’t believe I was dreaming, or that I’m dreaming now.” She paused, trying to take mental hold of her anger to bolster her confidence, but suddenly it was too tenuous to grasp and it slipped out of reach, eluding her and leaving only a renewed sense of disorientation.

The voice in her head laughed softly. “No, you are not dreaming now. I am here. You do not imagine me.”

“Then I did not imagine Fenran.”

“Perhaps not. That is up to you to decide.”

Indigo’s gaze flicked about, but still she could see nothing; the darkness was absolute. “Who are you?”

“You know who I am.”

Yes, she believed she did.... Indigo’s teeth clenched and the muscles of her throat contracted as the smoke, sickly sweet now, stifled her. “Where is Fenran? Where has he gone;
where you have sent him
?”

“You will not find him here. You will find only me, and those whom I choose as my servants, as I have chosen you.”

Indigo frowned, though for some reason she found it a tremendous effort. ‘ ’I am not your servant. I acknowledge only one mistress: the Earth Mother herself.“

“Do you, Indigo? I think not. I think that although you may not yet allow yourself to believe it, you are ruled by another.”

Indigo’s anger rose again; again she tried to grasp it, and again the essence of it eluded her. Even so, her voice was knife-sharp as she retorted, “Not by
you
, madam!”

A throaty chuckle echoed ghostlike in her mind. “We shall see, in good time. Now, Indigo, I shall speak and you shall be my mouthpiece as before.”

“No.” Indigo shook her head. “I will not be your marionette a second time.”

“You will. You are my oracle. I have chosen you, and you have no choice but to obey me.”

Indigo started to say, “I have every—” but suddenly she found that she had no voice. Her tongue had frozen, locked to the roof of her mouth, and neither her physical strength nor all her willpower could move it. Again the soft laughter filled her head.

“You see? You
are
my servant, Indigo. Now, listen well to me and carry my words back to my people. They are waiting for you.”

Far away, like the distant roaring of the sea, Indigo heard the sound of many voices. At first their noise was no more than a blur, but swiftly it resolved into a single, rhythmic word, repeated again and again.

“
Speak! Speak! Speak
!” They were calling her, calling the oracle. They had seen the signs and knew that the Ancestral Lady was among them. Indigo tried to fight against their exhortation, but with a huge surge, the disorientation came back and her senses deserted her. She couldn’t see, couldn’t touch; she had lost all awareness of her body and seemed to exist only as a mind without a physical shell.

Listen, Indigo. Listen and speak.

She had no choice. The words were filling her. She was becoming the words; she knew nothing but the words. On the lakeshore, amid the sea of upturned faces, the oracle opened her mouth and a wail of anticipation went up. In another world, in darkness and nothingness, Indigo tried to scream. There was a violent jolt; a blast of arctic cold went through her, and then she felt her mind tumbling helplessly into a vortex as the physical world wrenched her back to blackness and fire under the cold stare of the rising moon.

The drums were sounding again. Urgent, insistent, their rhythm thrummed in her bones, and the torchlight flared against her eyes, making her wince and turn her head away. Shadow shapes moved in the torchlight; the priestesses were moving about the sandy arena in a shuffling dance, their voices counterpointing the drums’ beat as they chanted shrilly. Then there was a new shadow at the base of the rock where Indigo’s litter was set; a figure clambered up and a strong, square hand held a cup to her lips. Indigo drank gratefully, recognizing Shalune’s low-pitched voice as the figure said, “Quietly, now. This will restore you.”

Grimya
? Her mind still floundering, Indigo searched mentally for the she-wolf’s reassuring presence. There was no response.

Grimya
? Uncertainty became alarm, and Indigo jerked forward in her chair.
Grimya
!

“Quietly!” Shalune pressed her back, her whisper sibilant. “It’s all right.”

Indigo pushed the cup aside as it was proffered again, and hissed agitatedly, “I can’t find Grimya!”

“She isn’t here. She went back to your quarters. I sent her there—she was frightened. Drink again now.”

“Frightened?” Nonplussed, Indigo was caught off guard and had swallowed another mouthful of the cordial before she realized it. The liquor had a sweet and powerful taste; some fermented fruit she guessed, and doubtless quite alcoholic. Already her body was beginning to relax, though her mind still whirled. What had Grimya been afraid of? She tried to think back to what had happened, and with a shock realized that she had no recollection of it whatever.

“Shalune!” Her voice was a sharp hiss. “What happened? Did I speak? I can’t remember anything!”

Shalune grinned her terrible grin. “You spoke.” She was clearly pleased. “Quiet, now. Let the drink do its work and bring back your strength.” She dropped to a crouch beside the litter, effectively cutting off any further exchange.

Indigo sat back, staring in confusion at the lake and the torches and the dancing, chanting women. She was beginning to feel giddy from the mixture of incense in the air and alcohol in her body, but a single thought had lodged in her brain and was harrying her, refusing to be quelled. Something was wrong. Surely, before the trance overtook her, the scene had been different? The memory of it still refused to come back to her, and the cordial was dulling her brain even as it relieved the tension of aftershock; but surely there had been others here, and something strange and unnerving had happened. Or was she deceiving herself? No, for if she were, what could have so frightened Grimya that she had been ready to flee back to the caves?

Indigo stared beyond the torchlights’ glare to the lake. The lake.... For a few moments her hazy brain absorbed nothing but the sight of the dark water, the crowd at its edge, the ceremony, the drums. Then abruptly a sliver of revelation sprang up from her subconscious mind and slipped into place.

At once she sat sharply upright and scanned the crowd. With the first barrier breached, memory of what she had seen before the trance overcame her was starting to return in full, like an artist’s portrait slowly taking form. Out of the lake ... they had come out of the lake, she had
seen
them. Ghosts, spirits, whatever they were, they had emerged from the heavy mist that shrouded the water and come to be reunited with the living souls they had left behind. Children—there had been three children, holding hands, bloodstained, accusing. A headless man, a fever-ridden youth, a mad old woman; many, many others. She had seen them all. And—the last and most painful shock struck her hard and sharply—
she had seen Fenran
!

Indigo’s hands clamped convulsively on the arms of her chair, and wildly she looked about again. But there were no apparitions now. The mist had faded away and the lake was an unruffled black mirror, reflecting only the torches and the bland, round face of the moon. The revenants were gone. But
where
? Had they merged back into the water that had disgorged them, or were they here still, invisible, the dead mingling with the living and moving among them?

Indigo reached down and grabbed Shalune’s shoulder. “Shalune!” she hissed. “Where are—”

“
Shh
!” Shalune pinched her arm hard in warning. “Not now!”

The priestess pulled away, and with a violent movement, Indigo tried to catch hold of her again. She rose halfway from her seat, then fell back, her head swimming as her limbs refused to obey her command. The cordial had been more powerful than she’d realized, its effect so strong that it had robbed her of strength and coordination.