Indigo - Inferno Part 11

The she-wolf's eyes were crimson with distress. Panting, she looked at the sorcerer in mute appeal, then to his astonishment she gasped, gutturally but clearly, "Please-hh-elp me!"

Jasker stared at her, wondering fleetingly if he might still be dreaming. He'd guessed that the wolfwas capable of telepathic communication, but hadn't bargained for this. At last he found his own voice, though it was soft with incredulity. "Grimya... you can speak...."

Grimya dipped her head in a manner that implied embarra.s.sment, even shame. "Yes, I... did not want you to kn-know. But now, I cannot... h-hide it any longer. I need your hh-help, Jasker!"

Amid the first shock of the revelation Jasker had paid little heed to what Grimya had actually said. But now, belatedly, it registered, and he felt a sharp stab of apprehension that erased the last traces of his weariness.

"What's wrong?" Muscles tensing, he started to get up. "Has something happened?"

"Not y-yet. But I fear it will. It is In-digo. She-"

Grimya pawed the ground in frustration at her limited abilities. "She is sick."

Nauseous horror twisted Jasker's gut. "Tongue of Ranaya, you don't mean the Charchad sickness?"

"No, not th... at. In her head. In her m-mind. It concerns the man, the hurt man. I tried to t-talk to her, but she... would not hear me. Please-I cannot explain it prr... operly. Come and see."

He needed no urging. For Grimya to have broken the bonds of her secret-and he could well understand why she wished no one but Indigo to know of her peculiar talent-something must be very seriously wrong.

"Lead on," he said. "Ranaya alone knows if I can do anything where you've failed, but I'll try."

They left the cave and Grimya hurried ahead along the maze of tunnels through which she had tracked the sorcerer. She found it hard to curb her impatience at his slower speed, and at last broke into a run as the main cavern mouth came in sight. Jasker saw her disappear through the entrance-then his heart nearly stopped as he heard a dismal howl echo back along the tunnel.

"Grimya!" He raced the last few paces, burst into the cave. Grimya stood splay-legged in the middle of the floor, ears flat to her head, and as he entered she turned to face him and whimpered one agonized word.

"G... gone!"

The cave was empty. Debris littered the floor, mostly Indigo's possessions, although a good few of Jasker's meager belongings were mingled with them. It looked as though someone had searched the cave frenziedly before abandoning it to chaos. Grimya was right: Indigo had gone. And so had Quinas.

*CHAPTER*XI*.

Jasker swore softly and sat down on the floor as his legs seemed unwilling to support him. Grimya ran to his side, tongue lolling. "Wh-what are we to d... do?"

The idea that Quinas might have regained enough strength to overpower Indigo was ridiculous; he could only have left the cave as her prisoner and not she as his. But if the girl's state of mind was as Grimya implied, that thought was poor comfort.

"Grimya." He turned to the she-wolf, made as if to take her hands, then remembered that she wasn't human. "Why would she have taken Quinas from the cave? Can you think of any reason?"

Grimya's head swung from side to side. "Sh-she would not... talk to me. But she was... was..."

She growled unhappily. "I cannot explain. I don't know the proper w-w-word!"

"Angry?"

"Ye-ess. But more. As if she had... caught prey, but w-would not believe that she had k... killed it, and so tried to kill it again and again."

Jasker understood the a.n.a.logy. "Obsessed," he said. It was what he had feared.

"Ob... s... sessed." Grimya repeated the word with difficulty.

"Yes. I've seen it in her, Grimya, and I understand it. You see, I, too, am obsessed with destroying the Charchad, and so I can sympathize with Indigo's feelings. But-" he laughed wryly, without humor-"strange as it may seem, I don't think my obsession matches hers. Something drives her; something I can't even begin to comprehend, and it makes my feelings shallow by comparison. When wetook Quinas to the cave..." Abruptly he checked himself. "No, You don't want to know about that; it isn't fair that I should burden you with it. Suffice it to say that I think we should find Indigo, and quickly."

"I can trr-ack her," Grimya said. "As I trr-acked you. That will be easy. But-"

"But what?"

"There is s-something else, Jasker. S-omething I have not told you."

Although the she-wolf's voice was capable of little inflection, her tone alerted the sorcerer. He frowned. "What is it, Grimya? What haven't you told me?"

"I..." She licked her chops uneasily. "I should not say. I have been told that I m... must not say.

But if I do not w-warn you..."

She was very distressed, he realized, duty and instinct warring within her and causing her painful confusion. He reached out and stroked the top of her head, attempting both to soothe her and to convince her of his genuine concern.

"Grimya. If you have promised to keep a secret, then I understand and respect that; it's a very n.o.ble thing to do. But there are times when matters change in unforeseen ways, and if that happens, then to keep the secret will sometimes do more harm than good. Do you see what I mean?"

"I... th-ink so...."

"Don't you think that this may be one of those unforeseen times?"

"I..." Unsure of herself, the wolf turned away. She lowered her muzzle almost to the floor, considering, then at last looked up at him again. "I do not know whether what you say is t-true. But I th- ink I must tell you. For Indigo's sake." She paused. "I m-must tell you about Ne-me-sis."

A chilly shock went through Jasker. "Nemesis?" he said sharply.

Grimya blinked. "You-know what it is?"

It was the word he had seen in Indigo's mind, the fragmented concept of a peculiarly personal evil which he hadn't fully comprehended. Jasker's pulse quickened.

"I have heard of it only once before," he told the she-wolf, "But it's important to Indigo in some way, isn't it?"

"Ye-ess," Grimya admitted unhappily.

"And it has some connection with silver?"

Her eyes flared red and her lips drew back, exposing her fangs defensively. "How do you k-know that?"

Anxious not to waste further time with detailed explanation, Jasker dissembled. "It was something Indigo said to me, A hint, no more. Grimya, you must tell me about Nemesis, tell me everything you know." He raised his head, glancing round the empty cavem as though some sound or shadow had alerted him, then s.h.i.+vered despite the heat. "My instinct warns me that it's vitally important."

"I under-stand instinct," Grimya said. "And mine speaks with the same voice. But... ahh! I w-wish I could sp... eak in your mind! But I have trr... ied, and you cannot h-hear me."

So she was telepathic, as he had guessed. Silently Jasker cursed his own shortcomings, the peripheral skills that he had never developed. If 1 had been a more diligent servant... he thought; but it was too late for wis.h.i.+ng.

He turned back to the she-wolf and said, "I know it's hard for you, Grimya, but we must do the best we can. Please-tell me what you know."

And so, haltingly but as quickly as she was able, Grimya told Jasker of the demonic threat that dogged Indigo's every step, and of its manifestation through Chrysiva's brooch, which had led to the savage and alien madness she had seen in her friend. Jasker listened, trying to help her when she couldn't find the words she wanted, and at last he had pieced together enough of the story to make a clear-and unpleasant-picture.

He thought back to the images he had seen in Indigo's mind during the truth ordeal. So much was explained now, from her almost inhuman single-mindedness to her vicious determination to prolong Quinas's ordeal, and he pitied her deeply. But mingled with the pity was a certain knowledge that to let sympathy cloud his judgment could be a very dangerous mistake. Indigo had lost control of her own motivations, and Jasker surmised that she was by now too strongly under the demon's influence to becapable of reason. The hold had to be broken-or, driven by the insane rage that Nemesis had so cunningly orchestrated, Indigo would hurl herself headlong and without rational thought at the enemy she sought to destroy, and that reckless obsession would be her undoing.

Which was precisely what Nemesis wanted.

Grimya had begun to pace back and forth across the cave. She was anxious to be acting rather than talking, and Jasker was well aware that time had been lost while she told her story. But to learn the truth had been vital; Nemesis wasn't a power to be reckoned with lightly, and without Grimya's forewarning he would have been unprepared to meet it.

The wolf said, "I want to go after her. If I w-wait much longer, there will be no trr-ack to follow."

"I'll come with you."

"N-no. You will only... slow me." She looked at him apologetically. "A-lone, I can ff-ind her without being seen."

She was right; he was no hunter, no tracker. But he had other skills....

"Very well," he said. "But take the greatest care. Ranaya knows I don't like having to say this, but if Indigo has, as you say, fallen prey to this demon, she may no longer look on you as a friend."

Old memories stirred in the she-wolf's eyes, and she dipped her head. "I... know that."

"Then find her, and return to me here as swiftly as you can."

"I w-will." And without a further word Grimya ran from the cave. Jasker heard her claws scrabble on rock as she raced away down the tunnel, then he crossed quickly to the shrine of Ranaya.

Sorcery couldn't help him now; he had never had a scrying talent, and Grimya's nose could find Indigo where his powers would only fail. Until the wolf returned with news of her whereabouts he could do little other than pray to his G.o.ddess.

Jasker knelt before the shrine and began to plead silently, fervently, for guidance.

To Grimya's dismay, Indigo's trail had been all but obliterated by the heat and by the pollution from the mines. She emerged from the tunnel network into the blistering sunlight of late afternoon, and was instantly a.s.sailed by the sulfurous stinks that blew into her face on a northwesterly wind and turned the air around her to a bra.s.sy haze. The rock was too barren to carry even a single footprint, and for several minutes Grimya sniffed at the ground, struggling to interpret and separate the smells of hot stone and old magma and the grimmer stench from the distant valley. At last, though, her nostrils encountered something she recognized. A hint, no more-but it led away along an old lava bed, up into the mountain slopes.

The heat made her gasp and the rock underfoot scorched her pads, but she ignored the discomfort and streaked along the gully, stopping every so often to check that the trail, still faint but just discernible, hadn't petered out. She tried to keep to shade where she could find it, but as she climbed higher into the peaks the patches of shadow became fewer, until she found herself on an exposed ridge that baked in the furious sunlight.

Grimya stopped to take her bearings. The wind was stronger here, ruffling her fur but bringing her little relief from the heat, and far below she could see the dense, phosph.o.r.escent smog that hung over the mines. Sullen fires glowed dimly through the smog where the smelting furnaces roared, and the air pulsed heavy and ominous with the stink and noise rising from the vale.

Grimya shuddered, not wanting to look at the scene. She turned her head to. gaze along the ridge-and saw, some way ahead where the ridge dipped to form a narrow shoulder between twin volcanic cones, two slow-moving figures.

She only just prevented herself from howling her relief. One of the distant figures was unmistakably Indigo; though the haze impeded her eyesight, the she-wolf recognized her friend's hair.

And the other, shuffling, stumbling, moving as though every step cost him indescribable pain, was the evil man, the man they had hurt because he served the Charchad.

Grimya slithered down the side of the ridge to a level from which she would be invisible should either of the two people ahead of her turn and look back. Body flat to the ground, she slunk awkwardly along the steep slope, until she judged that her quarry would by now have reached the farther peak and be too concerned with climbing to pay any heed to what lay behind them. She wriggled back to theridge's summit and saw that she'd guessed rightly; they were some fifty paces ahead of her now, moving slowly into the red-brown folds of the peak's lower slopes.

Grimya hesitated. Jasker had told her to return as soon as she had news of Indigo's whereabouts; but loyalty and concern were tugging against the injunction. She knew Nemesis's intention as well as anyone, and she was desperately afraid for Indigo. She couldn't leave her to the demon's unchallenged influence-she had to try again to make her see reason. She had to.

She broke into a run, sprinting along the ridge, and as she ran she called Indigo's name.

The girl stopped and whirled round, bringing up the crossbow which she held in her hands. For a moment her eyes were blank, without a trace of recognition; then abruptly the she-wolf's presence registered in her mind and she snapped, "You! What do you think you're doing here?"

Indigo, you must listen to me! There's danger, there is-And Grimya's urgent mental message collapsed into confusion as she realized that Indigo's mind was utterly closed to her. She couldn't communicate, for her friend refused to hear.

Hastily switching to vocal speech, she gasped out, "I-came to f-ind you. Indigo, there is dan-ger!"

Quinas had sunk down on to the bare rock, shuddering with giddy exhaustion, but Indigo didn't move. She stood staring down at the she-wolf, and Grimya was appalled by the cold contempt in her eyes, and by the aura of hatred that radiated almost tangibly from her. Suddenly, against the grim backdrop of the barren peaks and the sulfurous, pulsing sky. Indigo had become an alien creature. And the dully gleaming brooch, pinned like a proud badge of rank at her breast, was feeding the fires within her.

"Please," Grimya panted, "you m... ust hear me! The brr-ooch-it is Ne-me-sis, it is the demon!

We did not understand at first, but n-now-"

She got no further, for Indigo's face twisted and she snarled, "We? So you've transferred your loyalty to Jasker now, have you? I should have expected nothing better of you!"

"No, Indigo!" Grimya cried desperately. "L-listen to me! Open your eyes, see what the demon has done! You m... ust not go on, or you will be in grr-eat danger!"

"d.a.m.n your carping and your cowardice!" Indigo's eyes blazed, and suddenly she leveled the crossbow until the bolt was aimed directly at the she-wolf. "You listen to me-and carry this message back to your good friend Jasker. You and he may not have the courage to do what must be done, but I have! Tell him that I am going to the Charchad Valley, with this piece of offal as my hostage, and that I mean to slay this demon where all his fine words and empty posturing have failed! Tell him that!"

Grimya swung her head from side to side in distress. "Please, In-digo! I am not your enemy."

"Enemy or friend, I neither know nor care. Go!"

"No! Come back with me, hear what Jasker has to s-s-say-"

"I said, go!" Indigo shouted, and her hands tightened on the bow. "Or I'll kill you."

Her finger was curling on the trigger, and as their gazes met, Grimya, to her horror, saw death in Indigo's eyes. She whimpered, backing away a pace, and Indigo sneered.

"I will count to three. And if you have not obeyed me by then, I will kill you. I mean it!"

Desolately, Grimya realized that this was no bluff. Her friend, her trusted friend, was insane, and if she didn't turn tail and run, she would choke out her life on this sere slope with a crossbow bolt in her heart. Hardly able to believe the betrayal, she stared for one last instant at Indigo, her eyes silently pleading, but met only the white-hot wall of the girl's fury.

"One," Indigo said.

Grimya whined.

"Two." Her finger tightened on the trigger-and the she-wolf turned and fled. She slithered down the slope, almost losing her footing but not caring if she fell to the foot of the volcano and broke her neck.

Grief swamped her; grief for her own failure, grief for Indigo and what she had become-but stronger even than the grief was a soul-tearing fear, as she raced with all the strength and speed she could muster back to the cave and to Jasker.

* * *Indigo watched the she-wolf dwindle into the distance, and only when Grimya was out of sight did she at last lower the crossbow and, cold-eyed, turn away. Quinas lay where he had slumped; as she moved to stand over him he looked up at her and tried to summon a contemptuous smile.

"One word, and you'll finish the journey with a bolt through your leg." Indigo spoke with remote indifference. "Get up." She waited while he clambered slowly and painfully to his feet, then prodded his spine with the bow. "Move. We've a way to go yet."

The overseer hesitated, and turned his ruined face to look at her. For a moment he seemed about to speak; then her expression made him think better of it and he clenched his teeth against the agony that tore at him with every step, to trudge laboriously on up the slope.

Indigo followed, watching his struggles unmoved and matching her pace to his. During the early part of the journey she had tried to make him go faster, threatening further torments if he disobeyed, but she had finally accepted that he was capable of no more than this snail's pace. Well enough; there was an hour or more of daylight left yet, and by the time the sun set they would be close enough to the Charchad Valley for its own evil nacre to light their way.

She hadn't once paused to question the impulse that had made her drag Quinas from the cave and order him to lead her to the vale. All she knew-or cared about-was that she would no longer tolerate delay. When the overseer had finally broken under Jasker's skilled torture and told them the truth about his master and mentor Aszareel, she had felt the sensation then: the surge of hot, blinding desire to run from the torture chamber, climb the slope of Old Maia, and from there follow the route that according to Quinas's gasping and agonized confession would lead her around the mines and into the valley of Charchad. She had controlled the desire then, aware that to act without thought or preparation would be foolhardy; but later, when the combined goads of Jasker's dissembling and her own furious focus upon the pewter brooch had begun to work on her, she was prepared to wait no longer.