Nocturne Page 16

  Forth said coldly, “I see. You didn’t think I could be trusted not to give the game away, is that it?” Twin spots of hectic color flared on his cheeks, and abruptly his voice grew passionate. “You think I’m a child—you, in all your wisdom and superiority, you think you always know what’s best! Well, I hope it comforts you to know that your wisdom and superiority might just have killed my sister!”

  “Forth—”

  “No!” Forth swung round and began to gather up his pack. “Damn you, Indigo; I’m not going to listen any more! I’m going after Esty, and I ‘m going to get her out of the hands of that monstrosity—and you can do as you please!”

  He heaved the pack on to his shoulder and would have strode away, but Indigo called after him. “Forth! We don’t even know which way she went!”

  Forth hesitated, then turned to look back at her. For a moment she feared he might be too angry even to take in what she’d said, but after a moment he uttered a vicious oath, then flung the pack down as his rage abruptly drained away. “Oh, Great Mother …” He put a hand to his face in despair.

  “I don’t want to quarrel with you, Forth,” Indigo said quietly. She felt as though she were walking on fragile glass, but she had to try to mend the rift if she could. “And I’m ready to admit that I was wrong—terribly wrong. I can’t change that mistake, but I want to make amends.” She paused. Forth stood motionless, his face a rigid mask, but he was at least listening. “If we’re to have any hope of finding Esty, we’ve got to do what you yourself suggested earlier: look for clues, and make a plan. It’s our only chance.”

  Silence for a while. Then, slowly, Forth nodded.

  “Very well. In that at least, you’re right.” He looked up, and met her gaze with a residue of resentful venom still in his eyes. “But this time it’ll be on my terms.” A finger jabbed at his own chest. “Mine.”

  He couldn’t do worse than she’d already done, Indigo thought bitterly. “Yes,” she said with the contrition that she felt. “Yours.”

  The clue, when they found it, was so blatant that neither of them could believe for a moment that it was an accident. Ten yards from where they’d slept they saw a glint of unwonted color on the turf, and discovered a bracelet made of small, cheap glass beads lying in the black grass.

  “Esty’s lucky bracelet.” Forth stared at it. “And it isn’t even broken. She must have dropped it deliberately. She wanted us to know which way she went—or whatever controls her did.”

  “Either that, or it was placed to mislead us,” Indigo said.

  He glanced sidelong at her. The atmosphere between them wasn’t easy yet, and the smallest hint—even imagined—of criticism put him instantly on edge. Then he crushed the bracelet in a clenched fist. “I don’t care. We’ve wasted too much time already, and whether or not this takes us on a ninny’s dance, I’m going to follow it.” A pause. “Are you coming?”

  Indigo didn’t argue with him. The bracelet’s clue might lead them on a real or a false trail; but they had no choice other than to trust it.

  She pointed ahead. “The ground rises a little for the next mile or so. We should be able to get a wider view from the top of the incline.”

  “Right. Then let’s move, and quickly.”

  They set a regime of running and walking alternately for fifty paces at a stretch, taking turns to carry the third pack that Esty had left behind. The rhythm enabled them to keep up a good pace whilst preserving their stamina, and when they finally reached the top of the distant rise they were both breathing only a little more sharply than normal.

  But the view was a disappointment. Though the sky’s peculiar silvered sheen enabled them to see for a vast distance in every direction, there was nothing but the empty, endless moor stretching on, it seemed, to infinity.

  Forth swore under his breath as the hope he’d been harboring died. “There must be something,” he muttered. “It can’t go on for ever. It can’t.”

  “I don’t believe it does.” Indigo narrowed her eyes in an effort to focus on the nightscape’s furthest reaches. She was thinking again of the theory, forgotten in the light of more urgent events, that the power of will might be capable of controlling the balance between illusion and reality in this world. Could it be that, beneath the mask of this unending and unchanging moor, the true contours of the demon’s dimension and all it contained lay waiting, if only they could summon the will to see it?

  She sighed, and let the idea slide away. Whether or not it was true, neither she nor Forth knew how to turn the vital key; and without that knowledge speculation was useless. Just one hint, she thought. Just one sign. Surely, as Forth had said, there must be something.

  Disheartened as much by her own reverie as by the vista’s barrenness, she bent to pick up Esty’s pack, ready to move on. But as she shouldered it, Forth suddenly gripped her arm, staring out across the moor.

  “There’s something moving.” He pointed, his voice rising with excitement. “There, in the distance—look!”

  Indigo turned. And far off, conspicuous against the land’s sullen backdrop, she saw a pale and indistinct shape. Distance gave it a flickering, ghostlike quality, but it was indeed moving, though slowly and erratically, across the night.

  Indigo heard her own sharp, eager intake of breath even as Forth spoke again. “Human?” He was looking at her, his eyes fervid.

  She bit her lip. “It’s impossible to be sure from here. But … I think so.”

  “And it’s heading in the same direction as we are. It’s Esty—it has to be!” He grabbed the spare pack from her, slinging it over his shoulder together with his own belongings, and set off across the turf. “Come on!”

  They broke into a scrambling run. The ground, perversely, was rougher on this side of the rise, hazardous with dips and tussocks that could turn an unwary ankle; and the heavy packs made their balance uncertain and progress erratic. Indigo feared that Esty might see them pursuing her; unburdened as she was, they’d have little chance of catching her if she chose to elude them. But she was apparently unaware of their approach, for she only continued to walk at the same steady pace.

  They gained rapidly on their quarry, and were only a short way behind her when they both realized to their chagrin that, though the figure ahead of them was human, and female, it certainly wasn’t Esty.

  “Mother of Life!” Forth slid to a breathless halt and his voice cracked with dismay. “It’s one of the sleepwalkers!”

  The woman was dressed only in a woollen night-shift, and her long hair, which by an ironic coincidence was almost the same shade as Esty’s own, hung down her back in a disheveled single braid. Now they were at closer quarters, Indigo and Forth could see that she had no control over herself or her progress across the moor; blind to hollows and hummocks alike, she stumbled on a mindlessly determined straight course like some helpless beast that knew nothing beyond the call of instinct. And with a sense of horror that crawled up from the pits of their stomachs, they saw that her bare arms were as thin as if the flesh and blood had been sucked from them, leaving only her bones stark and angular beneath their emaciated covering of skin.

  Shock and pity warred with disappointment in Indigo’s mind; but underlying them was a rekindling of excitement.

  “Forth.” She stared at the woman, who continued to walk on, unaware of them. “She’s the first we’ve seen of them. The very first of the Bruhome walkers. So they are still alive!”

  “Yes.” Forth’s eyes were miserable. “But what use is that to us now? She won’t lead us to Esty.”

  “She might! Remember that awful sense of purpose they all had when they left the town; as though they had a goal that they must reach at any cost? The entity that lured Esty away may also be drawing them towards itself—her goal and theirs could be one and the same.”

  Forth’s eyes widened. “Of course!” Then the feverish eagerness faded abruptly. “But she’s moving slowly; too slowly. If we follow her, then the Mother alone knows what might become
of Esty before we can catch up with her. I’m not willing to take that risk.‘’

  “We don’t have to.” Indigo gestured towards the walking woman. “Look at her. Her course never wavers, no matter what obstacles the land puts in her path. I’d be prepared to wager that she’s been walking in a straight line from the point at which she first broke through the thorns into the forest.”

  “So, if we follow that same course … yes! It has to work!” Suddenly the rift between them was forgotten altogether, and Forth took hold of Indigo’s hand, starting forward. “Hurry! Esty can’t be that far ahead!”

  “Forth, wait.” Indigo stumbled after him. “When we catch up with that woman, we must stop. I know she’s still entranced, but there’s a chance we may be able to make her respond to us. And anything she can tell us might be invaluable.”

  He was dubious, but finally nodded. “All right; we’ll try. But I’m not going to waste too much time.”

  Breaking into a run, they caught up with the sleepwalker, and their paths divided to flank her on either side. They still hadn’t glimpsed the woman’s face, for she’d looked neither right nor left as she trudged on; but as they drew level and then a little ahead of her, Indigo bit back an oath as she saw her features clearly at last.

  She looked like a corpse. Long ago, when an old retainer at Carn Caille had died, Indigo—no more than eight years old—had crept surreptitiously into the anteroom where the coffin was set out in readiness for the funeral pyre; eaten by curiosity about the sight which her parents, conscious of her tender years, had forbidden her to see. She’d been appalled by the changes that death had wrought upon the old servant, whom she’d childishly adored; he looked like an effigy in wax and parchment, shrunken, unhuman, alien. Life and soul had gone, and left nothing behind but an abandoned shell. The image, her first direct encounter with human mortality, had stayed with Indigo all her life, and now as she looked at the woman from Bruhome, the old memory came flooding back with a vengeance. Wax and parchment: the flesh of her face had fallen away and she was a white, cadaverous husk, only her eyes—pale, and slightly protuberant before the dark, inner obsession had sunk them deep into their sockets-retaining any animation.

  Indigo heard Forth say softly, “Goddess preserve us…,” then he swallowed back revulsion and stepped into the woman’s path, reaching out to take her by the arms and halt her. Her steps slowed, faltered; then, grotesquely, she stood where she was but her feet continued to move, up and down, up and down, still walking though they could make no progress.

  “It’s like touching carrion,” Forth said, and his voice was shaking. “She’s cold, and her skin feels…” He shuddered, and his fingers twitched involuntarily, wanting to withdraw.

  Indigo stood beside him, and looked into the woman’s eyes. Unblinking, the woman stared back, seeing nothing.

  “Lady. Lady, can you hear me? Can you understand?”

  No response. Still the feet kept fruitlessly moving.

  “Lady, we want to help you if we can. Please—if you understand, try to show us some sign.”

  Suddenly the woman stopped treading. For one eternal moment she stood utterly motionless—then her eyes brightened with intelligence, and her lips parted in a sweet, childlike and rapturous smile that on the cadaverous face was gruesome. Forth jumped back, releasing her, and she raised one twig-thin arm, pointing out across the moor.

  “Look!” she said in the earthy accent of Bruhome. “Oh, look—so beautiful, and so sad!”

  Indigo and Forth swung round quickly, but there was nothing to be seen except the empty nightscape. Baffled, they turned again to face the woman. She still smiled her dreadful smile, but the light of intelligence in her eyes had died, leaving them void of any expression.

  And then, before their horrified gazes, her body broke into fragments, and the fragments crumbled to dust.

  •CHAPTER•XI•

  Forth straightened up, wiping his mouth with the back of one hand. His face was the color of clay and his eyes haunted as, unsteadily, he returned to where Indigo stood a few paces away.

  “I’m sorry.” He spoke gruffly, embarrassed and angry with himself for the lapse. Indigo sympathized, though she knew he wouldn’t appreciate her saying so: she had seen far worse sights than the woman’s disintegrating corpse, but for Forth the shock had been more than his stomach could bear.

  She looked at the small, pitiful heap of pale dust which was all that remained of the Bruhome victim, the spark of life sucked from her as the physical flesh and blood and sinew had been drained away. Devoured, gone. And the ugly correspondence with the withering crops was final confirmation of Indigo’s belief about the demon’s nature. It was a vampire. In the real world, such legends were rife; creatures of the night, drinking blood, sucking out the lives of others to sustain their own unnatural existence. But this vampiric force drank far more than blood; it took everything. Sap, flesh, even will, until there was nothing more left for it to feed on.

  Forth said suddenly, “Did you hear what she said?”

  “What?” Indigo had been wrapped in her ugly thoughts, and didn’t fully take in his words.

  Forth hunched his shoulders and forced himself to look down at the dust. “Just before she …” he swallowed, “before it happened, she saw something; a vision of some kind. And she said ‘So beautiful, and so sad.’ ” He looked up at Indigo. “The day Chari took the sickness, Cour told me the last thing she said before she fell to it. You were there: do you remember?”

  So sad. Memory slid into place, and Indigo recalled the wonder and pity in Chari’s voice as she’d uttered those words. And at the pool, Esty’s soft exclamation as she’d gazed into the reflected face of the denizen of the garden. So beautiful, and so sad. A heartrending sorrow that wrung pity from all who encountered it. Was that the key to the demon’s hold over its victims—was that the lure that drew them so willingly to the sacrifice?

  Quickly, she looked to where the dead woman had pointed. Whatever the poor creature had seen, it had been revealed to her only at the moment of death, a lifting of the veil and a promise of paradise beyond. For a final instant she had believed in that paradise, and because of that belief the vision had been real, for her will had made it so.

  Her will. Indigo raised her own left hand and studied it. There was no trace of any scar where the fire had burned her: she had willed it away, refused to believe that she was burned, and—perhaps because the pain gave her an extra incentive-belief had become reality.

  “Indigo?” Forth said, his voice a little querulous. “What are you thinking? You haven’t answered me.”

  She pointed, as the dead woman had done, across the moor. “What do you see, Forth?”

  “Exactly what you see: the dark, and the open land.” He sounded puzzled, and wary.

  “And how far do you think that open lands extends?”

  “The Mother only knows. For all I can tell, it could go on for ever. Indigo, we can’t afford to waste time—”

  She interrupted him, unslinging her pack and hefting the hide bag in which her harp was kept. “Please, Forth. I want to try an experiment. It may not work, but if it does, it could lead us not just to Esty but to the others as well.” She saw him about to argue, and added fervently, “Please—bear with me, and help me if you can.”

  As she spoke she had slipped the harp from its covering, and sat down cross-legged in the grass with it balanced in her lap. She didn’t dare touch the strings, not yet; only when her mind was prepared would she stand any chance of success. She settled the harp more comfortably, then looked at Forth again.

  “Forth, do you believe in music?”

  He stared at her as though she’d gone mad. “Of course I do! What kind of question’s that? Indigo, I don’t know what you’re doing, but—”

  “Take out your reed-pipe. Don’t try to play it; just prepare it.”

  Forth swore exasperatedly. “I will not! Not unless you tell me what on the sweet Earth you think you’re doing!�
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  “Very well; I’ll tell you.” A quiver of excitement was starting to move in Indigo as awakening intuition told her that this seemingly insane scheme was right. She glanced over her shoulder at the dead woman’s remains. “In my home country, when someone dies, a bard must play their elegy to speed their soul to the Earth Mother. It’s something instilled deep in my people’s traditions; to fail to do it would be unthinkable. So I mean to play this woman’s elegy for her, simply because it must be done.”

  Forth’s eyes narrowed, and the first glint of understanding began to show in them. “The harp should fail …” he said speculatively.

  “Yes. By the apparent laws of this world the harp should fail, as your pipe and the lantern failed, and as fire won’t boil water.‘’

  “But if we truly will a thing to happen …”

  Indigo smiled thinly and displayed her left hand; a slow answering smile began to form on Forth’s face.

  “That’s the key,” Indigo said. “I must play the elegy; it’s ingrained in me. And that may be enough to overcome the illusion that our music can’t exist!”

  She knew when he began to reach into his own pack that she’d won. Forth might harbor grave doubts, but he was at least willing to try. He pulled out the pipe and fingered it tentatively. “What do you want me to play?” Now his smile was faintly sheepish.

  “For the moment, nothing,” Indigo told him. “I’ll try first; I’ll play one of our traditional requiem songs. Watch my fingers, and will the sound to come.”

  The harp was probably badly out of tune, but she made no attempt to adjust it, knowing that the effort would be futile, for she’d hear nothing. Only when the feel of the elegy filled her might the harp, silenced by this unnatural dimension, be persuaded to speak.

  Indigo took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and began to play. For a few moments the experience was bizarre, for where her unconscious mind anticipated the sudden flow of music, there was only silence but for the faint slither of her fingers on the strings. Fiercely she fought the jarring confusion, disciplining herself to forget the physical silence and concentrate on the music in her mind. The melody was an ancient one, known as Cregan’s Farewell; it had no words, for a Southern Isles elegy must be given with music alone and not with song. Long, long ago, Cushmagar, the great bard of Carn Caille, had taught her to play the piece, and through his inspiration she had come to feel its deeper significance; the sorrow ingrained within it, the loss, the yearning for that which had once been, but now was gone and could never be again. Images flooded her mind; of a blood-red sun hanging above the winter ice; of a great gull, its outline etched with silver, sailing in solitary splendor over an empty plain; of the sea, beating and beating against the ramparts of huge, impassive cliffs and inexorably wearing their might to shingle and finally to sand. Her fingers moved unconsciously on the strings, her body swayed to the rhythm of the music inside her head. And now before her inner eye a face was forming, an old, seamed face, the cataracted eyes silver-grey and blank, the mouth parting in a gentle smile as her old friend and mentor Cushmagar, long dead now, nodded approval of his favourite pupil.