Indigo - Inferno Part 7

Jasker smiled humorlessly. "Whatever it was that changed Aszareel had also given him a charisma that was nothing short of incredible. I saw the man on several occasions: he was like a vortex, Indigo, a vortex of intense energy that drew the eyes and the minds, even perhaps the souls, of all who crossed his path. Almost like a living volcano. If every man, woman, and child in Vesinum had thrown themselves at his feet, I wouldn't have wondered at it.

"But it wasn't like that. Charisma or no, it needed more than Aszareel alone to turn the miners and their families from Ranaya. There were some, of course, who caught his fervor from the beginning, but their numbers were small... until the sickness and the dying began."

Indigo looked over the valley again. Full darkness had fallen now, though the landscape was stained with the guttering flare of the torches, the brilliance of the smelting furnaces-and the sickly s.h.i.+mmer emanating from the distant Charchad Vale.

"It started with the men who were working the adits in the northernmost slopes," Jasker continued. "Their bodies warped, their skin peeled away, their eyes rotted in their sockets. No healer could help them. Then those who labored in the furnaces began to succ.u.mb. Birds and insects disappeared; animals died or started to mutate. Gra.s.s refused to grow. And people panicked. Miners and smelters refused to work in the mountains, and for a while it seemed that the entire operation would have to close for lack of willing men.

"But then Aszareel started to preach in Vesinum. He declared that the sickness wasn't a plague but a blessing, that those who fell prey to it were favored of Charchad, because they had had the faith and the courage to brave the valleys where their cowardly fellows had failed. He started to demonstrate powers-they were conjuror's tricks, barely worthy of a neophyte, but to the ignorant and superst.i.tiousand frightened they were impressive enough-which he said were Charchad's gift to the favored. And he exhorted the miners to return to the mountains, to offer their minds and their bodies to the glories of the new power, and be saved." He paused, then turned and spat very deliberately on the rock a few feet away.

"What choice did those men have? Without the mines, without the ore to smelt and sell, their only prospect was starvation. Yet if they returned, if they exposed themselves to what lay in the Charchad Vale, they, too, would sicken or mutate. So they began to believe what Aszareel told them; that the sickness was a sign of blessing, that through suffering they would be elevated, transformed. Saved. They made themselves believe him, for it was their only hope."

Indigo nodded. She was still staring into the valley, but her eyes were unfocused. "So the cult grew," she said quietly.

"It didn't merely grow; it erupted. The miners returned to the valley, and they fed their families; and when the sickness visited them and their children were born mutated, they listened to Aszareel and his acolytes who told them that they were the chosen. Those who dissented were shouted down; and before long the cult grew strong enough to start demanding allegiance." Jasker's lip twitched. "There are always opportunists; men who will grasp at a chance of gaining power over their fellows for their own aggrandizement. Aszareel had no shortage of lieutenants to pursue his cause with the most fervent zeal."

With a stab of loathing Indigo recalled the overseer, Quinas. She started to say, "There was a man I encountered-" but broke off in midsentence as a beam of vivid light suddenly lit the face of Old Maia immediately below them. Grimya yipped in alarm and Indigo swore aloud, involuntarily jerking back as the light skimmed past them and on across the volcano's upper slopes. For a moment the crater gaped like an awakened monster in the beam: then the light vanished.

"Ranaya incinerate their bones; they're sweeping!" Jasker scrambled backward, throwing himself flat; as Indigo seemed about to stand up he grabbed her arm, pulling hard. "Get down, woman! Do you want to be seen?"

A second beam stabbed the night, higher this time. She saw it coming, ducked her head just before it blazed across the spot where she had been standing. Grimya snarled, her hackles rising defensively, and Indigo looked at Jasker.

"What in the Mother's name was that?"

"They're directing light beams on the mountains, to search for anyone on the slopes."

"Light beams?" Indigo was incredulous. "But how can that be done?" A new shaft of brilliance cut the darkness and instinctively she ducked; but this time the beam swept eastward, missing their vantage point.

"Look carefully at the outer ring of torches," Jasker told her. "Beside each one you'll see a huge metal disk-there!" as yet another beam appeared and began its wavering search. "See? They're made of highly polished copper, and they use them to reflect the light onto the rocks."

She was just in time to glimpse a momentary, blinding refraction as torchlight fell on a gigantic sheet of metal far below. The disk was turning-it was just possible to make out tiny, straining figures laboring over a great capstan-and she realized that the scale of the things must be enormous if they could cast the light so brightly and so far.

"But it makes no sense," she said. "Even if the beams were to reveal anyone in the mountains, they couldn't hope to see them from such a distance! "

"Oh, they could. With the great gla.s.s." And seeing her blank expression, he s.h.i.+fted his position, fumbling at his waist, and unhooked what looked like a small, bra.s.s cylinder. Indigo had noticed it hanging from his belt when they left the cave but had thought little of it, a.s.suming it to be some priestly symbol, a staff of office perhaps. Now, though, she looked at it more closely and started with surprise when Jasker twisted one end of the cylinder and drew out an inner barrel that doubled the instrument's length.

"A spygla.s.s," he said. "Surely you've seen one before? Hold it to your eye, and it enables you to see objects from far away."

A very old memory stirred: and suddenly Indigo remembered a curio that her father had oncereceived as a gift from her mother's people in the east. A tiny tube of silver, encrusted with filigree and jewels... they had called it by a different name, but the principle was the same. King Kalig had considered it nothing more than an elaborate toy with no practical value; by the time one had fiddled with it, focused it, and found what one was looking for, he'd said, the quarry would probably have run a mile or more out of bowshot. He had kept it, not wis.h.i.+ng to be discourteous to his wife's relatives, but he had never used it; nor had he permitted his children to play with it lest it might damage their eyesight.

She said, "I've seen one, yes."

"Well, imagine the same thing on a greatly increased scale. A tube as long as a man is tall, mounted on a table that can be turned." He grimaced. "They could see a fly on the face of Old Maia with that, if there were any flies left to be seen."

She still didn't fully understand. "But why should they want to scan the slopes? I know that outsiders aren't encouraged, but-"

"Outsiders have nothing to do with it. It's their own men they're watching for. Miners who might try to escape."

"Escape?"

Jasker's face was grim. "I told you that the Charchad are now strong enough to gain converts by force where persuasion fails. There are still those who love Ranaya and refuse to give fealty to the monstrosity in that valley-men like Chrysiva's husband-but now that all pretense of free will has been abandoned, such 'unbelievers' are obliged to toil with their fellows whether they will it or no. A few have the courage to try to escape. None, to my knowledge, have yet succeeded."

Indigo was silent. Beside her, Grimya lay with her muzzle on her paws. She seemed to be staring into the darkness, but Indigo had the feeling that the she-wolf saw nothing, that her mind was not fully on Jasker's words. Tentatively, she projected a gentle query.

Grimya ? What troubles you ?

The she-wolf blinked, and although her head didn't move her gaze fastened on Indigo's face.

Why do they do such things? Men sending other men to their deaths. Men rejoicing in sickness.

Why, Indigo? What power can it be that wants such things to happen ? I would ask the man, but I cannot; he doesn't know that I can speak to humans. Ask him for me, I want to try to understand.

I will. It was the very question she herself had wanted to ask, but Grimya had articulated it more simply than she could have hoped to do. She looked at the sorcerer.

"What is the Charchad, Jasker?" With one hand she indicated the grim vista spread out below them. "They have a stranglehold; they force men to work against their wills; they punish supposed wrongdoers by consigning them to that demonic valley. But why? What do they seek to gain by it?"

Jasker shook his head. "I don't know. Power? Dominion? Who can say what moves such depraved minds?" He fingered the spygla.s.s. "As well ask the true nature of what lies in the valley itself."

She felt her throat constrict; the answer was plain, though she didn't want to acknowledge it.

"Then you've not seen it for yourself?"

"No. A glowing pit; that's all I know of it. But there's something evil there, something blacker than I can comprehend, and it's powerful." Jasker's eyes lit harshly. "You might call it a demon."

A demon. Jasker was more right than he knew... recent memories stirred sharply in Indigo, and she turned back toward the sorcerer, speaking more curtly than she had intended.

"Your device-the spygla.s.s. Let me look through it, Jasker. Let me see what it can do."

He made an acquiescent gesture and held the bra.s.s tube out to her. "As you will. But it has nothing like the power of the great gla.s.ses they use below."

"No matter." She took the instrument, raised it to her right eye. "Tell me what to do."

His hand closed over hers. "Train it, like so, on the area you want to survey. When you have a picture of sorts, twist the outer barrel until the image comes into focus."

Grimya queried: Indigo, what is it? Why such haste? But she couldn't answer. She was lost in the intricacies of the spygla.s.s, fascinated and not a little awed by the intensified vista she saw through its lens. She trained the gla.s.s on the distant smelting furnaces and forced herself not to recoil as it focused suddenly on the slick surface of the river, brilliantly reflecting the furnace fires as though the very waterwere alive. Further-she was shuffling forward on her elbows, oblivious to the rock grazing her skin-and she saw the valley's north wall, cracked and pitted, an unhealthy, greenish radiance spilling down the slopes. She raised the gla.s.s a fraction, then swore as the picture was swallowed by a nacreous s.h.i.+mmer that filled her field of vision and blotted out all detail. The radiance from the Charchad Vale. But she couldn't see what lay beyond its borders, couldn't glimpse even the smallest clue as to the nature of her demon.

"Indigo." Jasker's restraining hand shook her out of her preoccupation. "Take care. Even the light from Charchad is dangerous."

She wanted to say bitterly: Not to one who cannot die, but bit the retort away, and let the gla.s.s sweep back past the river, past the infernally glowing furnaces, into the main mining area once more. A torch flared briefly in one comer of the lens, making her wince; she steadied her hand, pulled back further- And stopped.

Men, moving among the litter and debris of one of the lower slopes. Magnified now to human proportions, they were slump-shouldered, shuffling to form a long, ragged line like reluctant warriors mustering before battle. She s.h.i.+fted the spygla.s.s a fraction and saw other human figures with what looked long-lashed whips slung carelessly from their belts; one, two-and her mind and body froze as one of the figures resolved into the form of a man with black hair, a certain arrogance to his stance.

"Quinas!" She hissed the name aloud without realizing it, and every muscle in Jasker's face locked rigid.

"What?"

On the verge of repeating what she had said, Indigo paused. She couldn't be certain; the phosph.o.r.escent nightglow shot through by torchlight was deceptive, and many men in this region had black hair.

"Indigo!" Jasker caught hold of her shoulder and shook her so violently that the spygla.s.s fell from her hand and rolled noisily over the rocks. "That name-what was it?"

Startled and disorientated, she blinked at him like a sleeper coming out of a trance. "Wh-"

"Did you say Quinas?"

The air was suddenly charged. "An overseer at the mines," Indigo said. "I thought-" A hot, indefinable emotion crackled between them. "You know him?"

Jasker's face had twisted into a look of terrible, venomous hatred. Every muscle in his neck and shoulders tensed, and his chest heaved as though suddenly he couldn't breathe. "That creature... " The change in his voice shocked Indigo to the core. "He is..." Breath came at last in a violent, indrawn rush.

"He is the serpent who slaughtered my wife!"

Grimya sprang to her feet with a howl of distress as she and Indigo together felt the bolt of blind, crimson fury that erupted from Jasker's mind. For a shocking instant the sorcerer's outline was etched in fire-then he sank back on to the rocks, covering his face with both hands.

"I never thought to hear that name again!" His voice was distorted with pain. "I've prayed daily for his slow death." His voice was distorted with pain. "I've begged Ranaya to give him into my hands so that I might twist him and crush him and tear him apart, as he has torn apart so many innocents-"

"Jasker!" Gripping his shoulders, Indigo jerked with all her strength, pulling him off balance. Eyes like white-hot embers met hers and she felt a renewed surge of insensate rage: then Jasker caught hold of himself, staring at her with a look of blank shock.

"Quinas..." His voice was a dead, dry whisper.

"He's alive. I met him in Vesinum; I-" She stopped, not wanting to relate the circ.u.mstances of their encounter. "He's a mine overseer, Jasker; that's what he told me. And just now, I believe I saw him.

There are men mustering down there, and others with whips."

"The s.h.i.+ft's about to change. Before the miners are dismissed, their numbers are counted, to see if..." Jasker shook his head violently. "Quinas..."

"He's Aszareel's lieutenant, isn't he? Isn't he?" She shook him again, fiercely.

"Yes. One of the most favored.""Then he'll know the secret of what lies in that valley. And he-" She broke off, thinking quickly.

"Jasker, where is Aszareel now? Does he still preach?"

Another shake of the head; though now Jasker was beginning to come to his senses. "No, I-don't think so. Shortly before they... shortly before I fled Vesinum, Aszareel disappeared. It was said that he'd gone into the Charchad Valley to receive grace and to be transformed." He grimaced. "That, so his acolytes say, is the ultimate benediction to the faithful."

"Then without Aszareel to lead them, Quinas is among the highest of the Charchad hierarchy?"

"Yes."

A slow and unpleasant smile spread across Indigo's face. She, too, had a personal score to settle with Quinas, though of a far lesser order than Jasker's. And Quinas had been the architect of Chrysiva's misery...

She said, "When the s.h.i.+ft changes-do the overseers leave the mines with the men?"

"Half an hour or so behind them."

"Then we may just be in time. Jasker, we must set a trap for Quinas as he leaves the mountains. I shall provide the bait, and your sorcery will be the trap's teeth."

Jasker's eyes lit ferally. "I would give a great deal to have my revenge on that festering, h.e.l.l-bred..." He stared at his own clenched fist. "What I would do to him, how I would make him suffer before he died... "

"No." Indigo laid a restraining hand on his arm. "I want him alive, Jasker."

He looked at her, his eyes tormented, "Alive?"

"Alive, and unharmed." She felt black excitement stir in her, and her fingers tightened hard on his biceps. "When I'm done with him, you may kill him as slowly and as agonizingly as your skills allow. But first, I want him to tell me how to find Aszareel-and how to reach the valley of Charchad!"

*CHAPTER*VIII*.

I don't care about the cause! Grimya said with unhappy vehemence. There must be another way. You can't do it, Indigo-you can't try to go into that valley!

Hush. Indigo tried silently to soothe the she-wolf. If we find Aszareel, there may be no need for such drastic measures. Don't see ghosts where there may be none.

But if we do not find him- Then I will do whatever I must. You know that, Grimya. If the demon is to die, there's no other choice.

"Indigo?" Jasker's soft voice broke in on their private exchange and Indigo turned her head, half rising from where she crouched in the lee of a rock fold. The sorcerer emerged from the darkness and she saw a faint, gold aura flickering like tiny phantom flames about him.

"I have summoned them. Are you ready?"

She nodded. "Tell me what to do."

A sound, so faint that she might have imagined it, impinged on her ears, a soft whistling as though the air around her had been invisibly displaced-She felt a warm breath skim past her face, and she stood upright. Jasker smiled.

"Hold out your arms, as though you were a falconer calling your birds to you. Don't flinch: you will feel some heat, but nothing more."

She did as she was bidden and Jasker closed his eyes, murmuring under his breath. Moments later there was a vivid s.h.i.+mmer in the air, and a brilliant green fireball materialized above her head, hovering briefly before it twisted in midair, divided, and coalesced into the flickering green and crimson forms of two salamanders, which settled on her outstretched forearms. As Jasker had warned, she felt a surge of heat from their translucent bodies, but it was no more than the tingling warmth of sitting by a winter fire. Golden claws p.r.i.c.ked her skin slightly, tiny, jewellike eyes regarded her with an alien intelligence, and fiery scarlet tongues, fork-tipped, licked the air and made it sizzle.Indigo saw Grimya back away from the s.h.i.+mmering elementals, but she herself felt no fear of them, rather a sense of awe that such creatures were willing to acknowledge her in such a way.

She looked at Jasker, her eyes s.h.i.+ning, and the sorcerer said: "Go, then, Indigo. I'll be waiting."

Grimya whined, disliking the sudden electrical charge in the atmosphere as the salamanders raised their heads and hissed. Indigo looked down at her and smiled rea.s.suringly. It's all right. They won't harm us. Go on, now-go ahead along the path.

Grimya looked at her dubiously for a moment, but didn't reply. Instead she turned about and trotted away, and with a last nod to Jasker Indigo followed her.

They had taken the shortest route back down the flank of Old Maia, then had climbed through the gully by which Indigo had originally stumbled upon Jasker's stronghold, and hastened along the path that led back toward the river and the road. Other elementals summoned by Jasker-tiny, living flames that hovered and danced along the path-had lit their way, and they had arrived within sight of the gates just in time to glimpse the last miners climbing aboard the open wagon that would take them back to Vesinum.

The overseers, Jasker had said, should emerge within the half hour, and Indigo and Grimya had settled down to wait while the sorcerer withdrew to make his preparations.

Indigo's heart was beating erratically as the mine entrance came into her field of vision. All the way down the mountainside Grimya had argued against this plan, and even Jasker had at first counseled patience, saying that without more time for detail and precaution she would be running a great risk. But Indigo had overridden them both. They had been granted an unlooked-for opportunity to take Quinas by surprise, and she would not let it slip through her fingers. In the end Jasker had taken little persuading to see her point of view; his own hatred for the overseer was goad enough. Grimya, though, was still unhappy, fearing for her friend's safety, and only Indigo's promise that she would take every care she could had mollified the she-wolf enough to make her agree, finally and reluctantly, to take part.

Ahead of her, Grimya had stopped at a place from which she had a clear view of the mine track.

The she-wolf looked back and Indigo heard her silent call. I can see the place. There is no one there yet.

Very well. I'll move closer. She advanced until she could just make out the guard hut, an angular silhouette among the more natural shadows of the cliff wall; then Grimya cautioned: No further. The little dragons shed much light, and you will be seen.

Indigo nodded and dropped to one knee behind an outcrop. The plan she had outlined to Jasker was simple enough but should be effective; and as she had said, she would make ideal bait for the trap.

When they had clashed in Vesinum, she was well aware that Quinas would have gladly killed her, had it not been for the fact that she was a foreigner, an unknown quant.i.ty who might have more influence than appearances suggested. In full view of half the town's population he would not have risked such an action; this time, though, without witnesses and under the provocation she intended to give him, she counted on a very different reaction.