Indigo - Inferno Part 16

Thunder bawled in the shaft, and the rubble under the she-wolf's paws s.h.i.+fted violently. From somewhere in the tunnel network came an answering rumble. Panic surged through Grimya; she couldn't a.s.similate what she had seen, or drag her senses into any form of coherence. Instinct and instinct alone awoke muscle and sinew and nerve, and she twisted about as the debris beneath her shook again, flinging herself toward the gap. As she reached it the fumarole seemed to swell and contract like a vast throat expelling breath-and in the wake of the towering fires, lava exploded out of Old Maia's heart.

With a strength she didn't know she possessed Grimya's hind legs powered her through the gap, and she leaped for the tunnel floor beyond. The ground beneath her heaved as she landed; she rolled, sprang up, and, ears flat to her head, tail flying behind her, streaked away as the first wave of boiling, churning magma began to sear its way through the rubble wall. She had no idea of her direction, no conscious memory of the route by which they had reached the fumarole, but intuition drove her onward, upward, the rising heat a deadly goad at her back as she sought a way-any way-to the outside world. A cataclysm of noise dinned in her ears, echoing through the tunnels and galleries; she glimpsed towering flames, rock collapsing into magma; she raced through blinding, choking smoke in which sparks danced like maddened fireflies, leaped hissing streams of molten metal, fled frantically through crevices bare seconds before their walls smashed together to cut her off. And at last there came a lessening of the heat, the taste of new air-fouled, but new air nonetheless; and though her lungs and throat were too seared for sound, she wanted to yelp and howl with relief as she realized that she had reached the first cave with its low slit of an exit.

She flung herself flat, writhing through the narrow gap-and emerged into mayhem.

High above her, the sky had turned to an insane sea of black and scarlet as fire belched from the cone of Old Maia. Rivers of lava were already beginning to pour down the volcano's upper slopes, spreading among the peaks like a network of blazing arteries. Colossal explosions ripped through the night, shock waves shaking the mountains and churning the air into buffeting chaos as in the distance Old Maia's sisters sent an answer to her challenge.Grimya sprawled on the slope, her sides heaving as she struggled to breathe. Her body was all but paralyzed with pain and exhaustion, and in her mind images clashed and whirled in an uncontrollable furor. The fumarole, the heat, the incredible power; Jasker screaming in triumph as his body burned, the awesome face of Ranaya-and Indigo, plunging toward final madness as the demon of Charchad rose to slaughter her- Reason came back with stunning force, and Grimya sprang to her feet. For a moment she stood rigid, head raised, striving to project her consciousness beyond the night's insanity.

Indigo! Her whole body quivered with the effort of the mental cry. Indigo! Hear me! If you live, hear me!

In her mind she saw only fire, and frantically she tried again.

A glimmering on the edge of the chaos in her head-a spark of life, human, moving, faintly aware of her but unable to reach out and help her forge the link- "Indigo!" This time Grimya yelped aloud, though the sound was lost in the thunder of Ranaya's Daughters. Indigo was alive! Hope burst into the she-wolf's mind, eclipsing her exhaustion and terror-then there came a crack and rumble, and ten feet away the slope split, shattering the obsidian path.

Glaring light erupted from the crack, and flames sprang into the night as lava forced its way from the creva.s.se, Grimya's eyes flared as she realized the extent of the danger that both she and Indigo were in.

If they were to stand any chance of escaping from the inferno, she had to find her friend before time ran out and the valleys were engulfed.

She spun round, her claws scrabbling for purchase on the treacherous surface. The air was thickening by the moment, clouds of ash whirling into her face on the hot wind and the burning nightscape alien and perilous before her. Fear clutched at the she-wolf's heart, but she drove it back, knowing that she dared not waste another moment. Like a fleet shadow she sprang forward and raced away into the churning darkness.

Indigo didn't want to get up. The foul dust of the pit floor was clogging her mouth and nostrils, and broken shards of rock stabbed painfully against her stomach and legs; the booming thunder was growing louder, and she could smell fire. But although she knew she should raise her head, every part of her battered mind and body protested the idea. She didn't want to open her eyes and look; she wanted only to lie where she was, her face pressed to the ground, until the world went away or unconsciousness claimed her. And she didn't want to heed the tiny, faraway voice in her head that called her name with increasing urgency, pleading with her to listen, to hear.

Grimya's desperate attempts to make contact might have come too late if the valley floor hadn't heaved suddenly and violently under Indigo, flinging her sideways and shocking her out of her semiconscious daze. Her hands flailed; instinctively she thrust outward to save herself-and came fully to her senses to find herself crouching in the pit, staring through billowing smoke and the tangles of her own hair at a circle of blackened ashes.

Aszareel. As the last traces of stupor vanished, Indigo remembered. The demon was dead.

Jasker had succeeded: he had raised the ancient, dormant power of the fire G.o.ddess, and channeled that power through her mind just as the last shards of her sanity were breaking down. With Aszareel had gone all the demons of the Charchad Vale: and something else, something she couldn't yet recall- A t.i.tanic rumble cut across the chaos of her thoughts, echoing deafeningly through the valley.

Wildly, Indigo looked up, and the revelation hit her like a hammer blow. Smoke, blotting out the sky-churning clouds of ashes and sparks raining down on the valley-the green radiance of Charchad had been destroyed, and in its place the night was lit by three vast columns of fire. The roar of a new explosion rocked her backward, and for an instant she was bathed in crimson brilliance that lit up the entire scene-then the first wave of lava poured over the rim of the vale and came tumbling like an avalanche toward her.

Indigo leaped to her feet and ran. The pit wall loomed from the murk and she clawed her way up, ripping her clothes, gas.h.i.+ng her leg, falling at last over the edge and scrambling upright again. Fireb.a.l.l.s of blazing magma were plummeting from the sky now; she saw one searing down at her, setting the filthysmoke alight, and hurled herself out of its path as it crashed to earth. Flaming shards hurtled in all directions and she screamed as one struck her arm; her sleeve caught fire and she beat the flames out as she ran, burning her hand and forearm. More fireb.a.l.l.s glittered overhead, sparks leaped dazzlingly in the air, singeing her hair; to her left the river of lava was widening, increasing speed, and veering in its course, and she swerved aside, taking a steeper route but one that would carry her away from the deadly flow.

Hot ashes, almost ankle-deep in places, scorched her feet, and she could barely breathe; each time she inhaled, her throat and lungs filled with smoke. She pulled up the hem of her skirt to cover her mouth and nose, but it made little difference; choking, blinded, she neither knew nor cared where she was heading, too desperate to get clear of the smoke and ash to think beyond the next staggering step. Once, not far off, she thought she heard voices crying out, and she slithered to a halt on the steep incline, peering wildly about. But the smog was too dense for her to see anything; the booming echoes of the eruption drowned any further cries and she hadn't the breath to shout back into the murk. If there were any other living souls in the Charchad Vale, she couldn't hope to search for them and survive, and she turned back to the slope, groping her way on and up.

Then suddenly there was a break in the rock above her. Not the path from which she had first looked down into the Charchad Vale, not the place where the great iron gates barred any hope of exit, but a jagged gap between two of the lower mountain peaks, its edges thrown into harsh relief by the flaming sky. Gasping, Indigo flung herself toward it, and sprawled full-length onto the backbone of a sharp, narrow ridge. The impact knocked the last of the stinking air from her lungs and she retched, giddy with sickness. As she dragged herself to her knees, it was almost all she could do to raise her head and look down on the far side, to the smelting furnaces and the mines beyond.

The valleys were in chaos. Men were running from the furnaces and the cooling lakes, racing along the ash road in a desperate bid to reach the mine gates before they were overwhelmed. Some might reach safety, but most had no chance, for nine ma.s.sive torrents of lava were converging on them from all sides, plunging out of the peaks and splitting into fifty tributaries that seared toward the valley floor to cut oft" all but a few escape routes. She saw a hurtling fireball smash down in the midst of a group of fleeing men; antlike figures spun away from the devastation, twisting and writhing as they burned; some flung themselves into the river, but the river, too, was burning as its polluted surface caught fire. Huts, machines, and gantries were ablaze, colossal tongues of blue flame belched from adits as gases trapped in the rocks exploded. And, vast and grim against the sky, avatars of destruction, the three gigantic peaks of Ranaya's Daughters vomited fire and lava and thundered their fury into the night.

Her eyes streaming, Indigo dragged her gaze away from the horrors below her. Nothing could save the doomed men, and to follow them into the valley would be suicidal. There had to be another way out- And suddenly, through the mayhem of confusion, a familiar voice broke into her mind.

Indigo!

Indigo shrieked, "Grimya!"-then choked as shock made her swallow a mouthful of the roiling smoke. For almost a minute she was doubled over; then as the worst of the spasm receded she looked wildly around, her heart pounding with renewed hope. Grimya was alive, and trying to find her- Grimya! She concentrated furiously, pus.h.i.+ng the mental call out with all the strength she could muster. Grimya, I am here! I heed you!

A deafening bawl from Old Maia shook the crags, and through it she heard the she-wolf's answering cry.

East, Indigo! Go to the east! I will find you!

Indigo needed no further urging. She climbed to her feet and turned, stumbling along the ridge to where a harsh but scalable slope of scree and boulders led onto the neighboring peak. Her legs ached savagely, her scorched hands and feet and face felt white-hot with pain, and it seemed that all the air in the world had burned to ashes: but she scrambled and slithered over the scree to sounder rock beyond, and began to cross the mountain shoulder.

She was halfway to the next ridge when a flare of light above made her look up. What she saw almost stopped her heart.The second of Ranaya's Daughters was, from here, a towering but distant menace beyond a chain of crags. Indigo had thought herself safe enough-but the forces unleashed by the eruption had shattered the volcano's southern face, and a cataract of molten magma had burst from its prison to flow down the mountainside, into the surrounding peaks, through gullies and chasms and over rocks, burning its way toward the valley floor. Three separate lava rivers were now blazing down the slopes where Indigo clung-and she was directly in their path.

She couldn't move. Terror rooted her feet and hands, and her mind was paralyzed; she could only stare in dawning horror at the danger. She might outrun the first of the murderous streams, but would be trapped between it and the second. And if they converged, or if yet another tributary came cascading over the crags high above, then she would be overrun, to die shrieking in flames- The rock beneath her shook to an enormous, rumbling vibration. Not thinking, not pausing to reason, Indigo started to run, zigzagging, leaping from foothold to foothold in a desperate and futile bid to outrun the oncoming lava. She knew she couldn't do it; the slope was too steep, she was certain at any moment to miss her footing and pitch down the side of the mountain- Indigo! Wolf!

Grimya was crying out in her mind, her voice wild and frantic. But Grimya couldn't help her; the lava was coming; she could feel its raging heat, feel the shuddering slope about to give way beneath her- Wolf, Indigo! WOLF!

With a shock that almost hurled her off balance Indigo remembered, and realized what Grimya was trying to communicate. Wolf. The power, the shape-s.h.i.+fting power that she had learned so cruelly and so unexpectedly in the astral world of demons-but she couldn't do it, not here, not now; it was impossible! She hadn't the strength, her mind was in chaos; she had only seconds before death struck her down, and terrified beyond all hope of control, she opened her mouth and screamed.

The scream metamorphosed into an ululating howl, and she felt the change as a ma.s.sive jolt of energy that slammed from her subconscious and into her body. Her balance went; she reeled, stumbled, fell forward- And was running, on four legs that jackknifed her over the rock, brindled head down, scarlet jaws gaping, hearing Grimya, her sister, her blood kin, urging her on as she streaked, far faster than any human could have run, toward sanctuary.

*CHAPTER*XVII*.

There was smoke and there was heat, and there was roaring fire that tore the darkness apart. She could barely breathe and her body was in agony, but still she ran, for she was no longer Indigo but wolf, animal, goaded by instincts that owed nothing to logic or thought, but that drove her on to the one goal of survival. Hideous stenches a.s.sailed her, vile tastes scorched her mouth, but still she raced on, until the world was a crimson whirlpool, battering her senses, endless, meaningless,, insane, Grimya found her less than a minute after she collapsed on the shoulder of a ridge that led up into the easternmost peaks. Though the rock was hot, and shook sometimes to the distant quaking of the volcanoes, the lava flows had not reached these slopes; here, they were safe enough.

Indigo sprawled on the ground, legs splayed out, head twisted to one side. Her eyes were glazed with exhaustion and her tongue lolled as she struggled to breathe; her singed fur was matted with a thick coating of ash, and when Grimya tried to rouse her, she could barely lift her muzzle a few inches.

They couldn't stay on the ridge. Dawn was close; the sun wouldn't be able to break through the dense canopy of ash and smoke that now hung over the entire valley, but once it rose, the heat-near intolerable now-would kill any living thing that had not found shelter, Grimya had seen a cave a short way off; it was small but would serve them, and she forced Indigo to rise, nipping at her shoulders and the nape of her neck until she staggered to her feet. Her thoughts were incoherent; though close to exhaustion herself, Grimya silently thanked the Earth Mother that she had been able to find her in time.

The sky was shot with rivers of blood red fire as the two wolves limped slowly and painfullyalong the ridge and onto a path, inches deep in ash, that wound along the mountain face. The cave was little more than a slit in the rock above the track, but the ash had not penetrated inside it, and it was relatively clear of smoke. Grimya coaxed Indigo through and watched anxiously as she slumped down on the floor.

"We c-can rest s... safely." She spoke aloud, not certain that her friend would hear her telepathic voice. "Until we are... recovered."

Indigo shuddered. For a moment her form seemed to hover bizarrely between the animal and the human-then she sighed, and Grimya found herself gazing down at the huddled body of a girl who, scorched, singed, tattered, and exhausted beyond recall, had already fallen into a comalike sleep.

The she-wolf looked back at the cave entrance. Sparks still danced in the air outside, and she padded to the opening, staring out into the insane night. The thunder, she thought, seemed less now, and the fury of the eruptions was ebbing, as if Ranaya's Daughters were almost done with their wrath. She shuddered, trying not to remember the things she had seen tonight, the fear and the horror and the pain.

She, too, should sleep; but before she rested, she wanted to look for one last time at the deadly vale, and at the ruins of the evil power which Jasker had given his life to destroy.

She felt a howl rising in her, making her flanks and her shoulders quiver. And though her lungs barely had the strength left to draw breath, she raised her muzzle to the sky and sang her night cry to the invisible stars. It was her own requiem for Jasker, and though she knew it was inadequate, it gave her a little comfort.

The howl died to a faint whine, and Grimya licked her muzzle. A stray eddy of smoke a.s.sailed her eyes; she blinked it away, then turned her head to gaze across the sea of peaks to the last high ridge that marked the boundaries of the Charchad Vale.

There was no vale. Instead, there was a jagged gap where one huge crag had split apart. And beyond the crag's shattered remains, glowing now not with the green nacre of radiation but with the deeper, hotter reds and golds of fire, the valley of Charchad and all the horrors it contained lay buried beneath incalculable tons of stone and slowly cooling magma.

Jasker was walking toward her. His figure was wreathed in warm, dim light like the glow of a hearth fire, and he seemed to tread not on solid ground but on a haze of smoke that eddied about his feet.

Indigo sat up. Her body felt light and a little unreal; she was aware of an aching thirst, but beyond that her only sensation was one of extraordinary peace. It was still dark-the only light came from Jasker's aura-and she held out a hand toward the sorcerer.

"Jasker? I thought..." But she couldn't finish, for she didn't know what it was she needed to say to him.

He smiled, then his lips moved as though he were replying to her, but she heard no sound. And his eyes, she realized, weren't the eyes of a mortal man, but quiet, unfocused pools of orange gold.

She knew then what Jasker's fate had been, but she didn't want to acknowledge it and couldn't bring herself to ask the question that would confirm it beyond all doubt. Jasker smiled again-and his countenance began to alter. The gray-white hair darkened to black, the gaunt face softened, becoming younger and suddenly heartrendingly familiar, until Fenran, her own love, looked back at her from the halo of light. Only the blank, golden eyes remained unchanged: and then Jasker's voice spoke quietly, warmly in her mind.

"I am with my Lady now. "

The halo began to fade. It died away, like embers slowly cooling, until the race that was both Jasker and Fenran merged with soft shadows and was gone.

"Fenran... ?" Indigo whispered. "Jasker...?"

Only echoes answered her. The darkness was complete and she felt bereft. Then a voice at her back spoke her name, and heart quickening with irrational hope, she turned.

A tall, graceful figure stood behind her, clearly visible even in the velvet blackness. Indigo looked at the stern and beautiful face, at the flowing hair the color of warm earth, into the milky eyes that gazed unblinkingly back with an unhuman blend of detachment and compa.s.sion, and remembered Carn Cailleand the bright being who had come to her in the aftermath of battle, and a forest glade where snow fell with silent intensity and her true quest had begun.

She said, and the words were both a challenge and a plea, "The demon is dead."

The Earth Mother's emissary, her mentor, her judge, did not reply, and fear clutched at Indigo's heart.

"We slew it." Her voice rose sharply, shrilly. "We destroyed it. It is dead!" The fear threatened to swell into panic. "Isn't it...?"

A sad smile touched the ent.i.ty's lips. "Yes, Indigo: it is dead. This dream is over now, and it is time for a new dream to begin."

Indigo bowed her head as a confusion of emotions welled within her. Relief, sorrow, bitterness-and presiding over them all, a weariness that made her soul ache.

The emissary looked down at the tangled crown of her hair, and said, "You have learned a great deal, child, and you are stronger now. Try to take comfort from that, for it will lighten your burden in the times to come."

Indigo felt tears start to trickle down her cheeks and wiped them away. She would not weep-but she had to loose the tight, hard knot of pain inside her, had to give her emotions some expression. She looked up and said miserably, "I thought... I saw Fenran. I hoped..." But the words wouldn't come, for she knew the hope was unfounded.

The bright being's voice was gentle. "With each victory you gain, Fenran's torment is a little lessened, for the forces that bind him are weakened. Keep hold of that, Indigo, and have faith."

Indigo lowered her gaze again. She knew she should take comfort from the emissary's words, but it was hard; so hard.

The being said: "Wake now, child. It is time to move on."

"I-" Then she stilled her tongue as she realized that there was only darkness where the bright ent.i.ty had stood. The darkness s.h.i.+vered, s.h.i.+mmered-and she opened her eyes to find herself confronted by dim, sulfurous daylight filtering in through the entrance to the cave.

Indigo! Something warm and mammalian moved quickly beside her, and Indigo looked up into Grimya's amber-gold eyes. Tears started again and she flung her arms around the she-wolf's neck, hugging her, unable to speak for some minutes until at last the suffocating intensity of her emotions eased a little, and she sat back.

Grimya nuzzled her face. You have slept for a very long time, she said concernedly. I think that we both slept, for I remember many strange things happening, but I believe they must have been dreams.

"How-" Indigo's throat was swollen and arid, and her voice caught on the word; she tried again.

"How long has it been?"

I do not know. The thunder stopped a long time ago-many days, I think-and the fire rocks and the ashes are no longer falling. But the sun has not yet driven away the clouds.

Indigo could remember little of those last, mad hours. The memory would come, she knew, but not yet; and she was was glad of that small respite.

"Aszareel-" she said. "He is dead, Grimya."

I know. The she-wolf licked her own muzzle, as she so often did when she was disturbed or confused. The . , . bright one told me so.

"Bright one?"

The one who came to us in the forest of my homeland, and who granted me my boon. I saw that one again, in my dream.

So the emissary had not forgotten Grimya... and suddenly Indigo felt the resurgence of an old bitterness as she recalled that long-ago meeting. A boon, Grimya said. What manner of boon could it be to face an endless future under the shadow of her quest, unaging, unchanging, destined to wander the world until the seven evils she had released were finally expunged? The she-wolf had no crime to expiate, and no lost love to strive to regain. Yet she had left her home and everything she knew to share Indigo's burden: and it had brought her to this....Grimya's quiet mental voice intruded on her unhappy thoughts, and she realized that the she-wolf had read what was in her mind.

Do you think my answer would be different now, if I were offered my boon again? It would not. I am your friend, Indigo, and where you go, I shall go, too.

"You shame me, Grimya. Your faith is greater than mine."

It is not. Simpler, perhaps, for the ways of humans often seem to me like a tree with tangled branches. But not greater. You know that. In your heart, you know it.

Did she? Indigo wondered. She thought of Fenran-with each victory you gain, his torment is a little lessened, the emissary had said-and realized that Grimya was right. She did have faith. And perhaps, as the she-wolf believed, faith was enough....

Slowly, Indigo rose to her feet, and walked unsteadily toward the cave entrance and the smog-filled day beyond. Her body had been battered to the limits of endurance, yet all she felt was a dull aching. She thirsted, but the thirst was bearable, though by now both she and Grimya should be dead for want of water. Immortality, it seemed, had its ironic compensations....

She reached the entrance and stepped out onto the mountain slope. They were near the summit of a high peak, and through the sulftirous clouds she could see the range stretching away on all sides.

Blackened with ash, empty, silent, the crags loomed through the eerie light like visions from a nightmare.

There was no sound from the mines, and no green glow to stain the sky with its cancerous radiance. Only a faint glimmering in the distance, a flicker of orange-red fires as veined rivers of still-molten magma moved slowly across the devastated valleys.

How many had died in that inferno? The fire G.o.ddess's vengeance had made no distinction between the guilty and the innocent; though a great evil had been banished from the world, the cost of the victory was savage. And Indigo knew that the shades of those victims would walk in her dreams for a long time to come.

She heard the soft sound of Grimya's paws on the rock and looked down to see the she-wolf standing beside her.

It had to be, Grimya said, and her eyes were filled with sorrow. Without it, the demon's sway could not have been broken, and the sickness and the suffering would have gone on and on.

"I know." Indigo remembered Chrysiva, and the torments that that innocent girl had undergone while waiting for death to claim her. But in her present mood, it was hard to take comfort from the thought that there would be no more victims like her.

I think that Jasker understood, said Grimya. He knew what the G.o.ddess's vengeance would mean. But he knew, too, thai there was no other way to save his land and his people. She blinked. I think he must have loved them very much.

Tears started into Indigo's eyes, blurring the dismal vista before her. Yes; Jasker had understood; he had known what the sacrifice must be, and for the sake of his G.o.ddess, and for those whose lives were being torn apart by the horror that dwelt in the Charchad Vale, he had been ready to become a part of that sacrifice.

She said softly, "Will you tell me of Jasker, Grimya? Will you tell me how he died?"

I will tell you. But-not yet. I do not think I could find the words yet.

"No. Not yet." Indigo wiped her eyes and for a few moments gazed at the churning sky. High above, a dim smear of paler color showed among the ash clouds, and she realized that it was the sun, still lost behind the dense canopy but slowly, surely, dispelling the murk and the darkness to bring light back to the land. And again she heard the words that the sorcerer, who had proved such a true and steadfast friend, had spoken in her mind, in her dream.

I am with my Lady now....

She wished she could have mourned him in the proper way, with music and a lament to speed his soul on its last journey. But her harp, together with all her worldly possessions-save the crossbow and knife, which Quinas's henchmen had taken from her-lay buried beneath a h.e.l.l of rubble and lava in the ruins of Jasker's cave. The thought made her want to cry again. To grieve for the harp was shameful when there were so many greater losses to be borne; but it had been very precious to her, for it was thegift of Cushmagar, the blind bard who was both her tutor and mentor, and the only link she had had left with the home she had lost.

Indigo sighed, and dropped her gaze from the faraway smear of the sun to look down the slope to where faint shadows were beginning to touch the rocks. And what she saw there made her heart contract and miss a painful beat.

Her harp. It stood unmarred, unblemished, on the ash-choked path, and the strings s.h.i.+mmered with the faintest of vibrations, as though she had but moments ago set it down. Indigo stared at it, certain that it must be a mirage, a wishful delusion conjured from her tired mind. But the harp's image didn't fade or waver-and suddenly she was scrambling down the slope and, reaching the path, fell to her knees beside the harp, heedless of the ash that rose in sluggish clouds around her. For a terrible moment she dared not reach out to touch the precious instrument, desperately afraid that she would find only empty air and the echoes of an illusion: but then her hand moved convulsively, almost against her will, and she felt the smoothness of polished wood beneath her fingers.