Indigo - Inferno Part 10

The brooch seemed to burn hotly anew against her skin, and Indigo said, "I have my own reasons, Jasker."

"Yes." He acknowledged the point with a wry quirk of his lips. "I'm sure of it."

She turned away as he went to fetch their prisoner.

*CHAPTER*X*.

Grimya sprang to her feet as they entered the main cave. For a moment Indigo felt the warm mental surge of her greeting: then the she-wolf saw what they carried, and the warmth shattered into a maelstrom of shock and confusion.

Indigo! Grimya's distress was like a psychic knife in the girl's mind. What have you done?

Indigo stared at her friend. For an instant she saw an echo of the image, both physical and mental, that she presented to Grimya, and cold fingers of conscience locked on her gut. Then she cast the feeling aside, as she might have cast away a worn and useless garment.

We did what was necessary, she responded curtly.

But the man still lives....

Yes. And will continue to do so.

Indigo-"No!" She hadn't meant to voice the angry retort aloud, but it was out before she could prevent it.

Jasker looked quickly at her, then at the wolf. "No...?" he queried, quite gently.

Indigo shook her head violently, refusing to elaborate, and the sorcerer watched as Grimya turned away. He hazarded that they had communicated briefly and not happily, resulting in Indigo's outburst, and experimentally he sent a soft mental probe in Grimya's direction. There was no response-she didn't even twitch-and Jasker sighed inwardly, realizing that she either couldn't or wouldn't respond to him. Now the she-wolf moved toward the cave exit, her head hanging low. She looked back once, as if hoping that Indigo would speak to her; but the girl ignored her, and slowly, dejectedly, Grimya padded out.

Jasker lowered Quinas's unconscious body to the floor at one side of the cave. Indigo sat down, back turned to him and shoulders hunched in a clear signal that she wished to be left alone. There was a peculiar blend of defensiveness and aggression about the posture, and Jasker suspected that the girl was balanced on a precarious mental knife edge that could at any moment pitch her into utter exhaustion or the throes of uncontrollable wrath.

Pragmatically, he said in as casual a tone as he could muster, "We should eat. It won't do to neglect necessities."

"I'm not hungry."

"Neither am I." He glanced at their captive once more. "To tell you the truth, I haven't the stomach for food at the moment; I'm too tired. But I'll make myself eat, because I must. And so should you."

She turned her head, her face venomous. "d.a.m.n you, Jasker, I said I'm not hungry! You sound like my old nurse-" And she cut off in midsentence, jerking away from him again. Jasker thought he heard a faint whimper as though she were fighting back tears. He sighed and, too weary to pursue it, went to his small food store and began to prepare a makes.h.i.+ft meal for himself. His stocks-never bountiful at the best of times, as food was scarce and decayed swiftly-were badly depleted, but he sc.r.a.ped together a few wilting remnants of vegetables and some strips of dried meat that could be softened if need be with a little water. When he had finished, he turned back and saw that Indigo had risen and crossed the cave floor to stare down at Quinas. Her expression was cold and faraway, but in the unsteady light from the candles he thought he detected the unnatural s.h.i.+mmer of tears in her eyes.

"Indigo." He set the food down and walked slowly toward her. She didn't flinch when he put an arm about her shoulders and, encouraged, he went on, "Indigo, you're grieving still for Chrysiva, and you must know that I understand only too well how you feel. But we've taken all we can from this creature in revenge." He looked at the unconscious man before them, at the burned hair, the blistered skin, the ruined hands, the grisly black and crimson crater where his right eye had been. "Wouldn't it be simpler now to let him die?"

Indigo shut her eyes and her teeth clamped hard on her lower lip. "Yes." Her voice was ugly. "It would be simpler. But I want him to live."

"Why?"

"Because..." She sucked in a deep, painful breath. "Because every moment he stays alive, every moment he suffers, is a further retribution. Don't you understand?" She looked up at him, and Jasker was taken aback by the terrible expression in her eyes. She looked as though she had opened a door onto a world so blackly evil that it had drained the last vestiges of humanity from her soul, and had coldly and deliberately chosen to step through that door. Then swiftly she reached into her robe and held up something that glinted dully. "She gave me this, Jasker. It was the most precious possession she had, and she gave it to me in grat.i.tude before I killed her. Look at it. Look at it."

He looked, but didn't attempt to touch the brooch. Harshly, Indigo continued, "Each moment, Jasker, each moment that Quinas suffers, will be for Chrysiva!" Her fist clenched tightly around the little pewter bird. "And he will suffer. He will."

"For Chrysiva?" Jasker asked. "Or for someone else?"

She froze, staring at him. "What do you mean?""You know what I mean." He gripped her shoulders, his thumbs unconsciously bruising, but neither of them was aware of the violence of the gesture. "It isn't for Chrysiva, is it, Indigo? I know, because I've suffered that loss, too. It's for Fenran."

Indigo's eyes widened. She hadn't realized that he knew Fenran's name, and to hear it spoken aloud was a shock that brought all the memories, all the horrors, surging like a horde of howling devils into her mind. Breath caught in her throat and cracked into a sob.

"No," she whispered. "No, it-" She started to s.h.i.+ver. "You can't understand, you can't-" Tears p.r.i.c.ked her eyes, hot and stinging; and with the tears came a vast and violent upsurge of the feelings pent within her. She tried to fight the emotion, struggled to stop it from breaking through to the surface-and suddenly her self-control shattered into a storm of weeping.

"Indigo!" Jasker caught her as she sagged to her knees, and she reached out blindly toward him, the pewter brooch tailing from her grasp as she clutched at him in a desperate and wordless plea for comfort. Not reasoning, not pausing to think, he held her tightly against him and his vision blurred as memories that were cruel kin to her own rose in his mind. Hair, long and thick and silky against his face, the smaller, softer contours of a woman's body, the smoothness of her skin... imagination and longing rioted together in the sorcerer and he kissed her face, her shoulders, the crown of her head; felt her respond and cling to him as though he were hers and she were his and under the benevolent smile of Ranaya it had never been any other way- "Don't weep." His voice was husky with emotion, the words m.u.f.fled as he pressed his cheek close to hers. "My dearest one, my sweet rose in a barren desert, don't weep." And then he spoke a name that for two years had been only a stab of silent agony in his heart.

Something deep within him locked rigid, and the shock of what he had done cleared his head as abruptly as if someone had thrown a pitcher of ice-cold water in his face. Appalled, he looked down at Indigo. She was silent, motionless, and he knew that she had heard him and understood the significance of what he had said.

Very slowly then she raised her head. Her cheeks were wet with tears and her eyes red-rimmed.

Her hands, which had been clasping his shoulders tightly, slowly unclenched and she wiped her knuckles across her flushed face.

"Jasker..." She paused, then drew away from him, letting herself sink down until she was sitting on the cave floor. "I'm sorry. I was..."

He shook his head. "No, saia. It's I who should apologize. I didn't think, didn't consider: for a moment I almost believed that you-"

"Yes. I felt the same." Jasker thought she was going to cry again, but she pulled herself together.

"We were both very foolish, weren't we?" She blinked rapidly. "You're a good man, Jasker, and our cause has given us a great deal in common. Friends.h.i.+p, sympathy, empathy even. But-"

He smiled sadly and finished the sentence for her. "But I'm not Fenran."

"No. And I am not your dead wife. It would be so easy to pretend, but pretense would be wrong."

"More than wrong." Jasker reached out and took hold of her hands. There was no tension in the gesture, only a kindness that was almost brotherly. "It would be a travesty."

Indigo nodded. There were no more tears left in her now, and as they dried she felt the storm of emotion shriveling with them, leaving a dark, quiet void. In the depths of the void something simmered, but it was too remote to have meaning and she was too exhausted to pursue it.

Jasker released her hands and gazed down at the floor. His eyes were hooded and his thoughts private, and silence fell in the cave for a minute or two. Then at last the sorcerer rose to his feet.

"I shall leave you to rest," he said-"I think perhaps we both need the chance to be alone for a while." He looked down at her, his face haggardly sad. "And I'm sorry, Indigo. Truly, I'm so sorry."

She didn't look up as he walked slowly out of the cavern.

Although Indigo felt wearied to the bone, sleep was beyond her. She sat cross-legged before the one candle that still burned in the cave, staring at the unsteady flame and breathing so slowly and shallowlythat an observer might have wondered whether she were alive or dead. Behind her, Quinas lay unstirring, his ruined hands bound behind him and his body placed so that his face was turned toward the wall. She didn't once look at him; but she was coldly, cruelly aware of his presence.

Minutes or hours might have pa.s.sed; Indigo neither knew nor cared. In his private sanctum deep in the volcano Jasker would be meditating or praying, trying to make amends for what he saw as his foolishness, and for breaking the taboo that forbade him from ever speaking his dead wife's name. Yet to Indigo, the spark that had sprung so briefly to life between them hadn't been folly, but rather the desperate need of two lonely and unhappy people to seek comfort in the midst of emptiness. She didn't love Jasker, any more than he loved her. But for one bittersweet moment they had superimposed the images of their lost lovers upon each other, and had been almost convinced by the illusion.

But almost was just that: almost. Illusions couldn't last, and Jasker neither could nor wished to take the place of Fenran. His hands were the only hands she wanted to feel on her skin, his lips the only ones she wanted to touch hers. Five years since she had lost him... how many more before she might hope to see him again?

On the floor before her, Chrysiva's pewter brooch lay s.h.i.+ning with a bright patina in the candlelight. She had retrieved it from where it fell, and at last, slowly as though in a dream, she reached out and picked it up, weighing it absently in one hand. Chrysiva. Fenran. Jasker's wife. They all lived on in this small, crude symbol of a miner's love; this embodiment of what the power she hated with such a pa.s.sion was doing to her world.

Hate. The quiet void that the emotional storm had left behind filled suddenly with something black and burning and deadly. Though she gave no outward sign of it, Indigo felt that a furnace had opened deep inside her and that its white-hot flames were devouring her from within. But she knew the sensation, and welcomed it; for this was the rage that had sustained her since the night in Vesinum, the wrath that had driven her to the mountains and to Jasker, the loathing that had led her to watch unmoved as Quinas shrieked in the agonies of torture. Hate. It was strong, strong wine. And she was not done with drinking yet.

She stood up, and as she straightened, it seemed for a moment that the cave filled with a red haze that all but blinded her. It cleared quickly-it was nothing more, she realized, than a brief miasma caused by tiredness and lack of food-but it seemed to crystallize the fury within her into a narrow, vicious and utterly clear beam that abruptly found its focus in one direction.

Indigo turned-and saw that Quinas had rolled over and was staring at her with his one remaining eye.

The hate surged. She smiled and raised her hands, clenching the fists as though tautening an invisible rope. "Well, now." Had she been capable of listening detachedly to her own voice, she wouldn't have recognized it. "The sleeper returns to the world. What did you dream, Quinas? Of tormented women? Of disease? Of slavery?" Her lips curved in an ineffably cruel smile. "Or of the kiss of fire?"

He didn't reply-she doubted if he was capable of speaking-but slowly, slowly the red lens came down over his eye, and a muscle in his ruined face twitched spasmodically.

Indigo's smile widened. "Are you in pain? Yes, I believe you are. Well, it will be over soon, Quinas. Not soon enough for you, I'd warrant, but soon." She dropped to a crouch and leaned over the captive. His appalling disfigurements didn't repel her; she was far beyond any such human reaction. "The pain will end, Quinas, when you have performed just one task for me. Perform it, and I will allow you to die. Fail, and I will spend many, many months enjoying the spectacle of your further suffering. You understand me, Quinas. Don't you?"

The crimson-lensed eye continued to regard her blankly, but this time the overseer's scorched mouth twitched. His throat worked convulsively and a toneless, desiccated whisper issued from him.

"M... m... ma-ad..."

Indigo laughed, the sound cracking the quiet. "Mad? No, Quinas. I am not mad. I am angry.

And my anger is not yet a.s.suaged, nor will it be until the evil thing you serve lies flopping and gibbering and rotting to primeval slime at my feet!" In a sudden movement she stood up, and swung around to where her possessions had been neatly stacked by the wall a few feet away. She s.n.a.t.c.hed up thecrossbow, slammed a bolt home, and then turned back to Quinas.

Her hands caressed the weapon, moving slowly but with deadly purpose, and she said, "You have told us of your master Aszareel, and you have told us where he is to be found. But it isn't enough, Quinas. I want more from you." Suddenly she leveled the crossbow. "Get up!"

Quinas hesitated, then made a barely discernible negative movement of his head. He tried to sneer, but it was a poor effort, and ghastly on his wreck of a face. "And if... I will not," he whispered, "what shall you... do then, saia!"

Indigo laughed, quite gently. "Look again, my friend. See where the bolt is aimed."

His gaze traveled to the crossbow, took in the line between it and his own body. The bolt was pointed directly at his genitals.

"No, it won't kill you," Indigo confirmed softly. "But it will cause you great pain. Yet more great pain, Quinas. Do I make my meaning clear?"

She couldn't guess what thoughts went through the overseer's mind as he looked at the bow balanced steadily in her hands. But at last, though slowly and with a show of reluctance that was all the dignity he had left, Quinas started to struggle upright.

"In-di-go!"

Indigo spun around, bringing the crossbow up in a rapid reflex at the unexpected yet familiar voice from behind her. Quinas fell awkwardly back on the rock floor and the girl stared over the bow's sights at Grimya, who stood in the mouth of the exit tunnel.

The she-wolf's eyes gleamed in the dimness, their expression sad. Will you kill me, too? she asked silently.

"You startled me...." Defensive, Indigo turned the words into an accusation and lowered the weapon. "I thought-"

Grimya looked at Quinas. You thought that I was another enemy?

The overseer was staring at her, curiosity overcoming pain and confusion. Swiftly, Indigo switched to telepathic speech. You should know better than to approach without warning!

I tried to speak to you, as we are speaking now. But your mind was closed to me. Grimya padded further into the cave, then hesitated. It is almost closed to me now. We exchange words, but I can't see your thoughts. Indigo, what are you doing? Where is Jasker? And why were you going to kill this man when you said you would not?

I wasn't going to kill him. d.a.m.n you, Grimya, you wouldn't understand!

Grimya whined softly in the back of her throat and lowered her head, dejected. I might. But you will not let me try.

Black anger surged in Indigo, and with a violent movement she flung the crossbow aside. It crashed against the wall, making Grimya flinch, and the girl strode across the floor before turning and facing the wolf again.

"Very well," she said aloud. "Very well, if you must know everything!" She no longer cared whether Quinas heard them, no longer cared for anything but her one intent, the one thing she meant to do and which Grimya had interrupted. "Come here, Grimya. Come here and look."

Indigo, please... you are making me fear what is in your head....

Indigo's face distorted into a vicious mask and she repeated savagely, "I said, come and look!"

Slowly and unwillingly Grimya approached. As she drew near she saw that Indigo held something in her outstretched hand. The she-wolf had seen it before. An ornament, such as humans liked to wear, made of a silver-colored metal. It had belonged to the poor, sick woman, and she had given it to Indigo as a gift, just before... but Grimya didn't want to remember that, for the woman's death had marked the beginning of the strangeness within her friend. And although she couldn't comprehend the reason, she felt that the little ornament had somehow been responsible.

"Well?" Indigo's voice was harshly interrogative. "Do you know what this is?"

Grimya blinked miserably. I know where it came from, but I do not know what it is called.

Indigo- She was interrupted. "It's a brooch. Chrysiva's brooch. Given to her in love, and taken from her,as her life was taken from her, in sickness and hatred and corruption! Are you capable of understanding what that means?"

But it is only a piece of metal, Grimya reasoned.

"No! It's far more than that; it's a symbol, a-" Words failed her and she shook her head violently, "How can you possibly understand such things? How can you possibly understand what this brooch means? It was hers: it was Chrysiva's. And now Chrysiva is dead, murdered by the Charchad. And the Charchad is the demon, and the demon squats in that filthy, stinking valley, and spreads its ordure and its corruption across the world!" She drew a great, gasping breath, and her body began to tremble with barely controlled rage. "I want that demon and all it stands for to die," she hissed venomously. "Whatever the cost, whatever the danger; I don't care." Her eyes met Grimya's, and the she-wolf recoiled from the insane fire that burned as nacreous and as unnatural and as all-consuming as the light of the Charchad Valley itself in her wild stare, "Chrysiva will be avenged!"

Candlelight caught the little brooch as Indigo jerked her hand away, and for an instant the pewter winked as bright as...

As bright as silver.

In that moment, Grimya realized what had happened to her friend.

Nemesis. Images of the demonic child with its inhumanly laughing eyes surged into the she-wolf's brain. Indigo's own alter ego, quintessence of the evil she had released from the Tower of Regrets. An influence that sought to destroy her, and from which she could not be free until the last of the seven demons was dead. And though Nemesis might take any form it chose, one constant would always betray it to vigilant eyes.

That constant was the color silver.

Horrified, Grimya stared at Chrysiva's brooch. She should have known when Indigo began to focus her attention on the woman's dying gift that the influence working upon her friend was unnatural.

But the fact that the metal was base and its sheen dull had misled her, and neither she nor Indigo had considered for one moment that other dangers than the Charchad might lie in wait for them. Now, though, Grimya was certain of it. Silver. A momentary glimmer in the dim candlelight. Nemesis had returned to challenge them.

She raised her head to look into Indigo's eyes and saw that it was too late for reason.

Unknowing, Indigo was in Nemesis's grip. And the demon's hold on her was too strong for Grimya to break.

The she-wolf felt a quivering, spasmodic sensation at the back of her throat; a reflex that made her want to raise her muzzle and howl her distress to the sky. She felt alone, bereft, lost-but a newer wisdom was fighting through the animal instinct, telling her that now, perhaps as never before, she must act of her own volition. Indigo wouldn't hear her; her mind was locked on another plane, shrouded in the black wrath that drove her. But there was another. Grimya doubted him, knowing he was mad and unwilling to offer him her complete trust. Now, though, it seemed that he was her only hope.

She whined softly, still hoping with a stubborn part of her mind that Indigo would blink and look at her, and that the insanity in her eyes would be gone. But Indigo didn't hear her. Instead she crouched, the brooch held tightly in her hand, and stared ahead as though she saw into an alien and dreadful world, and relished it.

She didn't even raise her head as Grimya ran from the cave.

Sheer exhaustion had claimed Jasker, but his sleep was punctuated by disjointed and unpleasant dreams.

They culminated in a nightmare during which, on another level of consciousness, he thought he heard a voice repeatedly calling his name, and when he woke with a jolt from the dream he was momentarily disoriented by the silence of his sanctum. He sat up, rubbing at his p.r.i.c.kling eyelids-then started afresh as he saw Grimya at the cavern entrance.