Louise Cooper - Indigo 06 - Avatar (38 page)

It was, she knew, a perilous and possibly lethal gamble, and if it failed, Yima would pay with her life. But Indigo dared not dwell on that. The risk had to be run. It was her only hope now.

She dropped one hand to her sash and drew out her knife.

“Very well, Uluye,” she said quietly. “You’re right; I can’t sway you. So I concede.” She held the knife out, hilt-first. “I offer you this as a token of my capitulation. Take it, and do what you must.”

As she spoke, the last livid edge of the sun sank behind the trees. There was a huge, massed intake of breath from the crowd, audible even above the drums and the chanting, and the long, gaunt shadows on the arena merged suddenly to form a pall of gloom. The torches sprang into renewed brilliance as the sky’s gory light began to die, and the first pinpoints of stars appeared in the east.

Uluye stepped forward. She took the knife, and for an instant Indigo felt a glimmer of her emotions as, her face unreadable in the torchlight, the High Priestess made a small and perhaps faintly sardonic bow to show that she both acknowledged and accepted the significance of the gift. Then, abruptly, the old, remote arrogance was back, and she turned to her women and made a sharp, canceling gesture.

Their chants ceased, and with a last toneless rattle, the sistrums fell silent. The crowd took some seconds to follow the women’s lead, but at last, complete quiet gripped the arena. The atmosphere grew tense and stifling as Uluye began to walk, slowly and with controlled deliberation, across the sand toward the wooden frames. As she drew level with them, Indigo thought she faltered, but the hesitation was so brief that it was impossible to be sure. Then, her shoulders set firmly and her head proudly erect, she stopped at the very edge of the lake and stood motionless.

Grimya, at Indigo’s side, watched the High Priestess anxiously.
She is dedicating herself to the Ancestral Lady
, she said.
She is speaking to her in her mind, I think, and asking her blessing. Indigo, what are we to do?

We must take the chance
, Indigo replied. She was trying to quell the thick pounding of her pulse, with little success.
There’s nothing else we can say or do to influence her. Our only hope now lies with Uluye herself
.

She probed deeper into her consciousness again, searching for the dark, mocking presence. Oh, yes; the Ancestral Lady was there; still listening, still waiting. Indigo’s heart thumped out of rhythm with sick disgust, and she sent a savage message to the dark goddess:
well might you be afraid of being abandoned, madam! You deserve nothing less!

Uluye had completed her private dedication. As she turned from the shore and took the five paces that would bring her to the first frame, she felt the Ancestral Lady’s benediction filling her. She was ready; she had asked for the blessing and the blessing had been given. She had been tempted to stray from her proper path, but she had overcome the temptation, and now the power was in her; she was a cup, a chalice, a,vessel brimming with the heady dark wine of the Lady’s will.

She reached the first frame. She stood before it, an avatar, an avenger, an executioner, and she raised Indigo’s knife high above her head so that the torchlight flashed on the blade as though anticipating the bright slick of blood. There was no ritual to accompany this; it was a stark deed, a solemn deed, and must be done swiftly and in reverent silence.

Uluye tensed the muscles of her arm, summoning the physical and psychic power. Her grip tightened on the hilt. She was ready, this was the moment-She looked down at Yima’s face; a stark mask of light and shadow, beaded with the sweat of terror and the day’s heat, looked back at her in silent, hopeless grief.

Suddenly Uluye was paralyzed. She tried to tear her gaze away, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t even blink. She had steeled herself to see a final appeal in Yima’s eyes, to turn a deaf ear to her pleas for mercy. But there
were
no pleas, there was no appeal; not even the last glimmering of hope for which she had prepared herself. There was only the sorrow of a child who knew, beyond all doubt, that the one who through all her life had been her sole nurturer and protector had abandoned her utterly.

Still upraised, still clutching the knife in a ferocious grip, Uluye’s hands began to shake. She struggled to stop the reflex, but she couldn’t do it, and now it was spreading to her arms, to her body, to her legs, shattering the paralysis, driving it out and bringing a wave of uncontrollable panic rolling in its wake.

No
! she thought:
No! I must! I must! She has sinned; the punishment has been decreed! I must do the Lady’s will! I must!

And crashing in on her brain came the black despair of certainty.
I can’t do it! Lady, strike me down and devour my soul and consign me to the
hushu
if you will, but I can’t kill my own beloved child!

“Uluye!”

The sound of her own name snapped the High Priestess back to earth, and she stumbled, dropping the knife. As her mind slammed painfully out of its paralysis and into the real world, she saw Indigo, with Grimya at her side, running toward her.

“No!” Uluye shouted hysterically, flinging up both hands, palms outward, to fend Indigo off. “Keep back, don’t dare to come
near
me! This is
your
doing,
yours
! You have poisoned me, you have infected my mind and made me an unfit vessel, and now the Lady denies me her strength and her power!”

“Uluye, stop this!” Indigo reached her, took hold of her upper arms and shook her so violently that Uluye’s jaw chattered. “
Listen
to me! This has nothing to do with the Ancestral Lady. It’s your will, Uluye,
yours
, that denies you the strength to kill Yima.”

Uluye stared back at her wildly, and Indigo realized that her words weren’t getting through. It was like hurling stones against a solid wall; she simply couldn’t break down the barrier and reach the priestess.

Oh, but the Ancestral Lady was laughing now! Indigo could feel the Lady’s mirth like a worm eating through her, and suddenly her self-control snapped. She pushed Uluye away, turned and ran back across the arena. Where the sand had been churned by their earlier scuffle, the oracle’s crown lay forlorn and discarded. Loathing the thing for what it symbolized, Indigo snatched it up and strode to the lakeshore again. Ignoring Uluye, who still stood rigid but helpless, she ran into the shallows of the lake and held up the crown.

“Here, you craven bitch!” she yelled, her voice cracking with rage and loathing. “Here’s the precious symbol of your tyranny and your cowardice! Take it back, you monstrosity, you serpent’s spawn, you
murderess
! You’re so afraid, aren’t you, that you haven’t even the courage to show your face; instead, you hide behind your human puppets like a weakling child behind its mother’s skirts. Here, weakling; here, child—take this, and play your games with it, and I wish you
oblivion
!”

She hurled the crown with all her strength out into the lake. It hit the water with a dull splash and sank. Seconds later a procession of small, sluggish ripples lapped the shore at Indigo’s feet. She stared down at them, her lungs heaving and her breath rasping as the storm of fury slowly subsided to a cold, hard core. Then at last she turned and waded out of the water.

Uluye hadn’t moved. Her body was rigid as an oak; only her jaw hung slack with shock. Her eyes were blank; she couldn’t assimilate what Indigo had done, couldn’t bring herself to believe what she had seen and heard. Across the gulf of the arena, the women were staring in silence, as stunned as their leader and as incapable of reacting. Indigo ignored them and strode to where her knife lay in the sand. She picked it up, walked back to the frames.

Yima was staring at her in fearful amazement, but the girl said nothing and made not the smallest movement. She looked the picture of abject helplessness, and Indigo’s sympathy for her was suddenly tinged with a faint edge of disgust. Yima was so passive, so weak. Did she believe, somewhere in her heart, that she had earned death?

She thrust the thought down and stepped up to the frame. The knife blade sliced through the ropes at Yima’s wrists, ankles and waist. Once, because her hands were shaking with anger, Indigo nicked the girl’s flesh, but Yima only continued to stare at her, limp and unmoving, and when the last bonds fell away, Indigo had to shake her and snap her name before, fearfully, the captive at last crept to freedom.

As Yima crouched on the sand, rubbing life back into her arms, Indigo paused briefly to seek in her mind for a reaction from the Ancestral Lady. There was nothing. The presence had gone. She turned to Tiam.

Tiam, at least, had no doubts about his salvation. The instant he was free, he scrambled clear of the frame and ran to Yima’s side, pulling her to her feet. Holding her in a close, protective embrace, he turned to Indigo.

“Lady Oracle, how can we ever thank you for our deliverance?” His voice was breathless with emotion. “Your name will live in our hearts for—”

Indigo cut short the flow of words. “There isn’t time for that, Tiam, and I don’t want it. This isn’t over yet by any means. Get Yima away, as far away as possible,
now
.” And as he hesitated, “Do it, Tiam. For the Earth Mother’s sake, go while there’s still some glimmer of a chance for you!”

Her words, or the urgency of her tone, got through to him, and with a quick nod of assent, Tiam started to lead Yima away. The priestesses stared at them as they crossed the arena, but no one made a move to stop them, and for a few moments Indigo almost believed that the crazy ploy would work and that they would simply leave the scene and melt away into the forest without a hand being raised against them. But she’d reckoned without Uluye. The women, who in any case were all trained to take their cue from her, might be too stunned to make the smallest move, but suddenly the High Priestess’s voice rang out to break the silence.

“You mindless fools, what do you think you’re doing? Stop them!”

Her cry broke the hiatus, and suddenly there was a babble of voices and a surge forward as the priestesses awoke to what was happening. Tiam saw them and began to run, pulling Yima with him. Uluye started after them across the sand; others hastened to intercept them.

Then, from the far side of the arena, came a shrill scream of unfettered terror.

Quarry and pursuers alike came to a chaotic halt and heads turned wildly, looking for the source of the dreadful cry. Then another shriek went up, and a third, and a man’s howl of fear—and suddenly there was pandemonium as a whole section of the crowd saw the dim shapes that were emerging from the forest.

Six of them ... eight ... ten ... a dozen ... shambling, shuffling, their heads wagging mindlessly and their arms reaching out, the
hushu
closed in on the throng. Indigo saw Uluye cast a horrified glance over her shoulder and knew, even before she too turned her head, that more of the horrors were coming at them from behind. They advanced in a slow but steady line, and her stomach turned over with fearful nausea as she realized that the monstrosities were moving in formation, as though some grim intelligence had taken hold of their dead brains and was coordinating them into a single, hideous entity, with one common purpose.

Around her, the scene was erupting into mayhem as more and more of the onlookers realized what was afoot. The air shuddered with screams and yells, and panicking masses of people ran in every direction, even those who didn’t yet know the cause of the terror fighting and flailing against their neighbors to get away. Indigo saw a woman and two children trampled as the mass of humanity closest to the arena, and therefore to the danger, strove to push its way through to the crowd’s edge and flee. One man, insane with terror, snatched a torch from its tall pole and slashed the blazing brand into the face of anyone in his path.

Still the
hushu
came on—but as the first and more fortunate of the throng burst from the press and fled away into the forest, Indigo realized suddenly that the ghouls had no interest in them. Indeed, she could see now that the huge, swaying mass was breaking up as more and more people got away from the arena. The
hushu
were ignoring them; she even glimpsed one of the horrors crash to the ground as a panic-stricken mob barreled past it into the trees, and none of its fellows so much as paused, although the running figures were within easy reach. And suddenly Indigo realized why....

As though a huge hand had slapped her face, her mind jolted into clear, harsh reason. At her side, Grimya, infected by the mass horror, was barking and snarling furiously, her hackles bristling and her eyes feral; Indigo whirled and dropped to a crouch, grabbing her muzzle and shouting into her face. “Grimya! Grimya, listen to me! This is the Ancestral Lady’s doing—we must find Uluye!”

The arena was now like a scene from a nightmare. The last glimmer of light in the sky had gone, and the only illumination was from the cold stars and the few torches that hadn’t either been taken as weapons or knocked from their poles and trampled out, so that it was all but impossible to recognize man from woman, or human being from living corpse, in the shadowy chaos. But the cries of the villagers were diminishing as more of them made their escape. Only a few stragglers remained now—and thirty or forty others, unconscious or dead, who lay prone on the sand or in the undergrowth at the forest’s edge.

Priestesses were milling everywhere, some wailing and crying, others making at least some attempt to gather both their wits and their friends, and at last Indigo glimpsed Uluye’s tall figure near the lake. She was trying to rally her women around her, and her voice, raw and hoarse, cut through the clash of noise.

“Uluye!” Indigo started to forge through the crowd toward her, and as she approached, she saw with a shock that the first of the
hushu
were only yards away. With Grimya snapping at ankles and flying skirts to clear their path, she reached the High Priestess and grabbed hold of her arm.