Louise Cooper - Indigo 06 - Avatar (22 page)

The fat woman climbed wearily to her feet. Grimya whined a gentle interrogative, and Shalune looked down at her. She was trying to smile, but her heart wasn’t in it. And Grimya saw fear on her face.

Shalune touched a finger to her lips but didn’t speak. She looked back at the lake, and a shudder racked her as though an arctic wind had suddenly touched the stifling air. Her lips moved, and Grimya was just able to make out the words she whispered into the stillness.

“Such an omen, such a dire omen! Oh, what have I
done
?”

She turned and, her back bent and her limbs heavy like an old, old woman’s, she began to climb the stairs.

On the night before the initiation ceremony, the citadel and the forest were rocked by a colossal thunderstorm. Grimya had sensed its approach since late afternoon and had been restless and uneasy, and those priestesses who were weather-wise predicted that the storm would be abnormally severe even by Dark Isle standards.

Uluye was grimly delighted by the prediction, pronouncing it an excellent omen, and at sunset, as the clouds gathered and the sky turned from darkly brazen to the purple-black of a fearsome bruise, she gathered a coterie of the senior women and led them down to the arena to chant a hymn of praise to the Ancestral Lady while the nightly circuit of the lake was made.

Grimya, watching nervously from the ledge outside Indigo’s quarters, heard their song rising with eerie clarity against a background of total stillness and silence; then she jumped with shock as the first searing triple flash of lightning ripped across the heavens. The following thunder obliterated the women’s voices, and as it began to fade, the sky opened and the rain came roaring down. The torches below on the arena guttered wildly for a mere few seconds and then were doused; another lightning flash showed the women pelting back toward the ziggurat, arms clasped over their heads to protect themselves from the battering onslaught as the downpour hit them like a cataract. They scrambled up stairs already treacherous with running water and ran for the shelter of the caves, their hair streaming and their garments plastered to their skin.

Last of all came Uluye, but instead of turning in to her own quarters, she walked on along the ledge toward the final flight of stairs that led to the open temple above the citadel. She passed by Grimya without so much as acknowledging her, and to the wolf it seemed as though she was in a trance. Her eyes stared fiercely ahead, unblinking though the rain was teeming in her face; her mouth was set in a triumphant smile, without the smallest trace of ease or humor, and she walked with an air of absolute purpose, oblivious to anything around her.

The lightning was by now almost continuous, the thunder a constant bawling din vibrating through the bluff. Grimya slunk back inside the cave, wishing that Indigo were here and not spending this last evening, the evening of dark moon, in vigil with Yima and Shalune. Since the night she had followed Shalune to the forest and witnessed her meeting with Tiam, Grimya had wanted to talk to Indigo and tell her what she had seen, but the chance simply hadn’t come. In these last few days before the initiation ceremony, it seemed that the oracle’s time, like Yima’s, was no longer her own.

For several hours each day, Indigo and Shalune took instruction from Uluye in the sponsors’ duties; then there were long and tedious rehearsals for the ceremony itself and for the procession that would precede it, and late into each night, small ceremonies at which, Indigo reported, she and Shalune must sit mutely while Uluye prepared her daughter in ritual fashion for her coming ordeal.

The few free hours left to Indigo were only just enough for the basic needs of eating and sleeping, and so yet again Grimya had felt obliged to restrain her urge to tell her story and had forced herself not to ask—as she longed to do—if they might not help Yima in some way. She hoped that there would still be a chance to make her plea, but the opportunity for that diminished with every new day; besides, she was forced to admit that she could see no way in which Yima could be helped now. The die was cast; Indigo couldn’t change matters even if she were willing to try to, and Yima herself seemed quietly resigned and as obedient as always. That in itself puzzled Grimya, who had expected a show of resistance, or at the very least, some sign of bitter regret, at this eleventh hour. It seemed, though, that Uluye had imposed her authority so thoroughly on her daughter that any spark of rebellion in Yima was extinguished beyond recall.

Grimya spent an unhappy night in the cave. The storm continued for hour after hour, until it seemed it would never end, and she slept only fitfully, frequently wakened by the thunder as it rolled around the bluff. Once, startled out of an uneasy doze by a double crash directly overhead, she saw that Indigo had returned and, still fully dressed, was climbing into her bed, but Indigo was too tired to even greet her, and disconsolately, the wolf laid her head down once more and tried to go back to sleep.

With dawn, though, the storm finally abated, and at last Grimya opened her eyes to see, instead of the ceaseless flicker of lightning against the black night, the first rays of the sun rising above the trees. She rose, stretched stiffly and shook herself from muzzle to tail. Indigo was still asleep, and the wolf padded to the cave’s entrance, pushed through the curtain and emerged onto the ledge.

The morning was clear, cool and quiet after the storm’s night-long racket. A few isolated puddles shone in the arena below, but most of the torrential rain had already evaporated under the sun’s early rays. The lake was brimming, its surface choppy in the breeze and glittering in the brilliant light; two women crouched at its edge, filling pitchers with water for washing, but most of the citadel’s inhabitants weren’t yet astir.

It should have been a peaceful, almost idyllic scene; yet as she gazed down from the ledge, Grimya felt something dark and oppressive underlying the apparent tranquility: the sense that a subtle, but inescapable, influence was reaching out to taint everything around it. Brooding; that was the word. Brooding and waiting. She remembered Uluye’s strange behavior as the storm broke, and she looked up to where the truncated peak of the ziggurat loomed. The open temple wasn’t visible, but a thin trickle of smoke was rising above the towering wall, and intuition told Grimya that the High Priestess was there still, as she had been throughout the night.

Her sharp ears caught a sound behind her, and she turned to see that Indigo was awake and sitting up.

“Grimya ...” Indigo’s voice was heavy with weariness. “Is it already morning?”

“Yess.” Grimya ducked back through the curtain and approached the bed. “You can’t have had more than a few hours’ sleep. You c-came back so late last night.”

Indigo smiled tiredly. “I’m all right.” She rubbed her eyes with clenched knuckles, forcing herself to full wakefulness. “Has Shalune been here yet?”

“No. Should she have been?”

“She said she’d be early. We’re to spend the day with Yima, making the last preparations for tonight.”

Grimya’s tail drooped. “With Y ...
ima
? But I thought that today we would be able to be together.”

“I know; I’d hoped so too.” Indigo reached out and ruffled the wolf’s cheek fur. “I’m sorry, my dear. By tomorrow it’ll all be over.”

Grimya wanted to say,
But it won’t
! Then, at the last moment, she stayed her tongue. There was something wrong with Indigo, something the wolf had never encountered before and that she didn’t comprehend. Indigo seemed preoccupied, distant. In one sense that was understandable, Grimya thought, for she was overtired and the last few days had doubtless been disorienting; but Grimya couldn’t shake off the conviction that her distance was deliberate, that she was concealing some emotion or some intent that she didn’t want the wolf to see. And Grimya was certain that whatever might take place at the initiation ceremony, this coming night would not be the end of it.

Indigo was out of bed now and crouching by the hearthstone, where she poured herself a cup of water from a pitcher. The water was stale and she grimaced at the taste, but drained the cup, set it aside and then poured more water into a bowl and began to splash her face. Grimya watched her uneasily. She thought of Uluye alone in the high temple above them. She thought of Shalune’s secretive visit to the forest to meet Tiam. She thought of Yima and of the other, unknown participant—
she;
no other identity, just
she
—in this affair. Something was wrong; she knew it as surely as she knew that the sun rose with each dawn. And, like the scent of hunters on the wind, Grimya sensed danger.

She spoke so suddenly that Indigo started. “Indigo, I have made a decision. When you g-go to the c ...
eremony
tonight, when you go down into this Well, I am coming with you.”

Indigo blinked. “Grimya, you can’t. You know that.”

“I d ... o
not
know it. I don’t w-want you to go there alone.”

“I won’t be alone. Shalune and Yima will be with me. There’s nothing to fear, truly there isn’t.”

But there was. Grimya’s muzzle quivered. “Indigo, please ll-llisten to me! There is something wrong with this, something bad. I don’t kn-know what it is, but I have a terrible feeling about it! Sha-lune—”

“Shalune has no wish to harm me.” Misunderstanding what Grimya had been about to say, Indigo interrupted before she could explain. Then, seeing the misery in the wolf’s eyes, her voice softened and she turned to face her, taking her muzzle gently in both hands. “Sweet Grimya, it’s quite simple. You
can’t
come with me. Uluye won’t allow it, and I’m not in a position to argue with her. I understand your fears, and I’m touched by your concern, but truly, I don’t believe that I’ll be in any danger.” She frowned suddenly, and for a moment her look grew very introverted. “I don’t know why I should be so sure of that. It makes no sense in the light of all we’ve said and all we suspect about the Ancestral Lady. But somehow I
am
sure, Grimya. I
am
.”

This, Grimya realized, was something else entirely. Preoccupied with her own doubts, she’d forgotten what lay at the core of this affair. Not Shalune, not Yima and Tiam, but the Ancestral Lady herself—or whatever dwelt down in the unknown world below the Well and spoke in the Ancestral Lady’s name. This, by all standards of reason, was where the danger lay, if danger there was, for this was the demon to which Indigo’s lodestone had led them.

Yet Grimya wasn’t convinced. Whatever peril the Ancestral Lady might impose, the wolf felt in her bones that Indigo was about to be faced with a far greater threat, and one over which the demon had no influence. But how could she explain such a feeling to Indigo? She had no evidence, no foundation, only her instinct. And in Indigo’s present state of mind, that wouldn’t be enough.

Indigo was still stroking her muzzle, but absently, her mind elsewhere. Grimya pulled free, backed a pace and made one final effort. “Please, Indigo,” she said throatily. “I m ...
ust
tell you what is in my mind. There is something you don’t know. Some-thing about Yima herself. She has—”

“Indigo?” The querying call came from outside the cave. Instantly Grimya fell silent, and Indigo looked up quickly. The curtain parted a fraction, and Shalune’s face appeared in the gap.

“Ah, you’re awake.” She made her customary ritual bow, then entered. “That’s good. We must make ready. Yima’s robes are being prepared now and it’ll soon be time to dress her for the vigil.”

Grimya echoed, silently and in dismay,
Vigil
?

I told you: Shalune and I are to stay with her throughout the day
, Indigo communicated.
We must say our good-byes for now
.

“You’ve eaten nothing?” Shalune asked, before Grimya could reply.

“Nothing,” Indigo confirmed. “I drank some water, but I understand that’s permissible.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Shalune seemed nervous, as though something had either excited or alarmed her. Grimya strove to meet her gaze, but the fat woman’s eyes avoided her, whether consciously or not, she couldn’t be sure.

Indigo....
She tried again to project her thoughts as her mind began to crawl with disquiet. But Indigo either didn’t hear or was too distracted by Shalune to answer. Her mind was filled with other matters, mundanities, the small necessities of the day ahead; she slipped her feet into plaited sandals, cast a thin cotton shawl over her shoulders, and followed the fat woman toward the cave’s entrance. Only when she reached the threshold did she turn and bend down to rub Grimya’s head.

“Be patient, dear one. Inuss will bring you food and see that you’re all right, and I’ll be back tomorrow.”

It had been Shalune’s suggestion that Inuss be deputized to take care of the wolf in Indigo’s absence. Uluye had agreed to spare the young priestess from the cliff-top ceremony, and Indigo was secretly relieved that someone would be here to prevent Grimya, if necessary, from following her to the temple. Under any other circumstances, she wouldn’t have wanted to leave her friend behind, and she knew that she was guilty of deceiving Grimya when she had said that Uluye would never have allowed her to come. Uluye could have been persuaded; even blackmailed if Indigo had had the determination. But Indigo didn’t want to persuade her. This time she wanted to face her demon alone.

She kissed the top of the wolf’s head. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” And to salve her conscience as well as to reassure Grimya, she added silently,
Don’t fret, and don’t worry about me. I’ll come to no harm
.

Grimya couldn’t reply. She didn’t have the words to express her fears, and there simply wasn’t time to search for another way to explain. She licked Indigo’s face, then watched dismally as the two women left the cave. The soft sound of their footsteps diminished along the ledge, and the she-wolf was alone.

The awesome voice of a single horn seared across the night, arousing a cacophony of shrieking and chattering from the forest’s denizens. Not this time the brittle, brazen sound of the priestesses’ welcoming trumpets, but a single deep and ominous note that set the air throbbing and vibrated through the ziggurat. Grimya, keeping her solitary, unhappy vigil in the oracle’s cave, shot to her feet with a yelp of shock, then stood quivering as the horn’s echoes slowly faded like thunder dying away in the distance. This was the signal Indigo had told her to expect—the sign that the initiation ceremony was about to begin.