Louise Cooper - Indigo 06 - Avatar (6 page)

Indigo smiled affectionately.
You’re right, my dear, as always. My only fear is that these women might have mistaken me for someone else. If that’s true, then things might not go well for us when they discover their mistake.

Grimya considered this for a few moments. Then she said:
I don’t think we need trouble ourselves about that. These are not evil people; I sense that clearly. Besides
... She hesitated, then glanced up at Indigo again, her amber eyes peculiarly intense.
I don’t know any more than you do what these women think you are. But the lodestone doesn’t lie, Indigo—so perhaps they are not mistaken after all
.

Indigo looked sharply at her.
Grimya, what are you saying
?

The wolf turned her head away, her tongue lapping the heavy air.
Only what I think. What I suspect. But I don’t know if I’m right
. Another pause; then she met Indigo’s eyes again, though a little reluctantly, Indigo thought.
You shouldn’t think about it. Thinking won’t help, not yet, not until we know more. You should sleep. You haven’t regained your full strength, and this journey promises to be tedious. Go to sleep, Indigo
. A cajoling, faintly pleading note crept into her mental voice.
Go to sleep. That’s what you need now above all else
.

Against her expectations, Indigo did sleep through much of that long, monotonous day. The four women, it seemed, were tireless; they stopped only once during the daylight hours, to eat a swift meal and drink copious quantities of water, and she suspected that they must be using some herbal drug to enhance their stamina beyond natural boundaries. The steady jogging of the litter, together with the sense of claustrophobia engendered by the stifling air and the muted but incessant sounds of the forest, lulled her into a strange, half-dreaming stupor that now and again almost harked back to the fever.

They halted for the night as dusk began to fall and shadows closed down like a blanket on the forest. There was no sight of any human habitation, and before preparing a makeshift meal, the women made a circuit of their chosen site, chanting and leaving small parcels of food in a wide circle around the litter. Grimya told Indigo that as far as she could tell, these were offerings meant to placate ghosts or demons that might otherwise be tempted to attack the party, and throughout the night, the forest’s susurrations were augmented by more low-pitched chanting and the staccato sound of rattles being shaken as the priestesses kept watch turn by turn.

The pattern of that first day continued through the five days and nights of their journey, broken only by two more violent rainstorms. They took shelter while these storms were at their height, huddling with the litter under a swollen-trunked species of tree with eight-foot leaves as broad as the span of a man’s arms, then trudging on again through the sweltering humidity when the downpours slackened. Several times they came upon human settlements, and on each occasion they were welcomed with awe and delight. More gifts were heaped upon Indigo, and again the givers wanted only her blessing in return. Shalune held court, dispensing advice and justice, and then, after perhaps two or three hours, the litter was lifted once more and they continued on their way.

The fifth morning dawned humid and oppressively still, with the promise, Grimya said, of another big storm. The women had pressed on late into the previous night, halting only when the moon set and the darkness grew too intense for them to make safe progress, and as soon as the first glimmer of light touched the forest, they broke camp and were away again.

There was an air of eager anticipation about Shalune and her cohorts this morning. The litter-bearers sang as they walked, a rhythmic walking song with a faintly disturbing minor harmony, which Grimya—who could understand a few of the words—said was to warn off any creature, human or otherwise, that might wish the party ill. It seemed to be an unnecessary precaution, for they had passed no settlements for a day or more, nor even any sign of human activity, in what appeared to be untouched virgin forest; but as the morning wore on and the air sweated into a sweltering hell, the song became more emphatic, more urgent ... and just before noon, they reached their journey’s end.

Indigo was dozing fitfully and uncomfortably behind the litter’s closed curtains, but Grimya’s telepathic alert woke her with a start. She raised herself on one elbow, pushing the stifling shrouds aside to look out, and her eyes widened with amazement.

The tangle of trees and undergrowth had ended as abruptly as though a giant’s scythe had cut a swathe through it, and they stood on the shores of a circular lake that reflected the sky’s stone-hard blue like a huge mirror. The sun, almost directly overhead at this latitude, battered down blindingly, bleaching the vista and making Indigo’s eyes ache with its intensity. All around the lake’s edge the trees crowded thickly, but on the far shore, their gray-green wall was broken by a gigantic bluff of red rock, stepped and flat-topped to form a ziggurat that towered high above the trees. The ziggurat’s face was pocked by what looked like unnaturally symmetrical caves, and at the truncated summit, too distant for its source to be discernible, a thin plume of smoke rose into the still air.

The women set the litter down. They were staring eagerly across the lake to the rock bluff, and Indigo made to climb out of the litter and join them. Seeing her, Shalune made a negative gesture, indicating for her to stay put, then rummaged in the bag she carried and brought out a disk of brass-colored metal some ten or twelve inches in diameter. The disk’s surface was polished to a brilliant sheen; Shalune squinted up at the sky, then took a few paces toward the lake and held the disk up, angling it back and forth so that it caught the sun’s rays. They waited, and seconds later a brilliant pinpoint of light flashed high on the bluff as the signal was answered. Shalune grunted, satisfied, and thrust the disk back into her bag; the women picked up the litter once more and they set off around the lake’s perimeter.

They had covered perhaps half the distance to the ziggurat when the quiet was shattered by a cacophonous and brazen fanfare. Grimya yelped a shocked protest, and Indigo, leaning perilously out from the litter, saw a group of brown-skinned people on a ledge near the summit, with long brass horns raised to their lips. Twice and three times more the horns blared out deafeningly, and then there was movement on the bluff and Indigo saw that a procession was coming down to meet them.

Stairs had been cut into the rock, zigzagging down the steep terraces past ledges and cave mouths to a patch of sandy ground that formed an open arena between the bluff and the lake’s edge. Moving down the stairs like a slow, bright stream came some dozen women, led by a tall, raw-boned figure dressed in a thin skirt and matching breastband of multicolored fabric and crowned with a headdress of feathers. They reached the foot of the last flight as Shalune and her party arrived, and Shalune stepped up to the tall woman and spoke a formal greeting. The tall woman inclined her head, said a few clipped words in response, then walked past Shalune to the litter. Grimya, who had crouched down in the litter’s shade and was watching the stranger warily, communicated:
I think she is the powerful one here, the ruler. Be careful, Indigo
.

I shall
. Indigo had already noticed that the tall woman’s attendants were armed with long spears and that some also carried machetes in their leather belts, and she was as wary as Grimya as, slowly, she eased herself out of the litter and stood up.

For a few seconds she and the newcomer stared at one another. Indigo was tall but this woman was a good half-head taller, and the headdress emphasized her height so that Indigo felt dwarfed. Dark, intense eyes in a strong face with a stubborn jaw looked hard at Indigo; then the woman stretched out a long-fingered brown hand and pressed the first two fingers to Indigo’s forehead. Indigo caught her breath but didn’t move, and after a few moments the hand withdrew. Then, to Indigo’s surprise, the woman bowed her head with arms outspread in an unequivocal gesture of respect.

“My name is Uluye,” she said in her own tongue, which by now Indigo knew well enough to understand a few words at least. “I am—” and an unfamiliar word followed. Grimya supplied silently,
She is a priestess, like Shalune. And I was right: she is the ruler here
.

Indigo bowed gravely in the old Southern Isles manner, which even after all these years still came naturally to her. “I am Indigo.”

She didn’t have the inflection right, she thought, but Uluye seemed to comprehend well enough, for she launched into a speech in which she repeated Indigo’s name several times. Grimya, struggling to keep up with and translate the flow of words, told Indigo that it was a speech of welcome and of thanks—thanks not only to Indigo herself, but also to something or someone else, the nature of which she didn’t understand.

A deity, perhaps
, she said,
but not the Earth Mother, or at least not as we think of Her
. A pause while Uluye continued to speak, then:
She wants us to go with them, up into that cliff
.

Uluye finished her speech and held out an arm to point toward the staircase. Indigo nodded acquiescence and turned to face the climb. The others formed up behind them, Shalune close on Indigo’s heels, and the horns blared again as they started up the long zigzag of steps. The climb was tiring, but after five days with no more to do than rest in the litter, Indigo had recovered a good measure of her strength, and although before long her thighs ached fiercely, she knew she could reach the summit without too much difficulty.

The lake, with its fringe of forest, fell away below them; it was, Indigo realized as it took on a new perspective, almost perfectly circular, and from above, the water looked like blue-green glass. She suspected it was very deep, perhaps the site of a long-dead volcano, though were was no high ground other than the bluff itself that might have formed the walls of an ancient crater. But whatever its origin, one thing was certain: this settlement was an ideal and virtually impregnable fortress.

They were clear of the treetops now, and there was no shelter from the heat that beat down on them like hammers. Grimya was flagging, her tongue lolling and her eyes dull, but she refused any help and padded stoically on. Higher still, and now at each turn of the stairs, ledges led off to the caves that pocked the wall. Each cave’s mouth was covered with a curtain of colored fabric, and as they passed by, the curtains were lifted aside and people emerged to watch them. Indigo saw to her surprise that from the eldest to the youngest, all of them were women. Were there no men here? she wondered. Or were the men away from the settlement, or staying out of sight for some unfathomable reason? Whatever the truth, the women certainly seemed to welcome their arrival, for every face wore a smile and several voices called out in tones of eager greeting.

Uluye waved acknowledgment but didn’t halt, or even pause, and before long they reached the final ledge, some twenty feet or so below the ziggurat’s summit. Uluye turned along the ledge, which was broad enough to leaven the effects of its giddying height a little, and led the party to another cave mouth, larger than its neighbors, surrounded by carved sigils and covered by a woven curtain. Shalune stepped forward to lift the curtain aside, but Uluye was there before her. They exchanged a sharp glance; then Uluye led the way through, and Indigo’s eyes widened in appreciative surprise as she saw what lay beyond.

The cave had been formed into a comfortable and well-furnished home. Mats covered the level floor, and the walls were bright with painted murals. There were three rattan chairs in the traditional boat-shaped style of the Dark Isle, a low-slung rattan bed, a cooking hearth surrounded by pots and utensils, and an assortment of other practical objects, from feather fans with polished wooden handles to a metal mirror, and even writing implements in the form of papyrus and a bone stylus. The chamber was lit by clay lamps that burned with a bluish light and gave off a sweet, syrupy perfume from their niches high in the walls.

Uluye looked at Indigo; Shalune hovered expectantly behind her. This cave, Indigo realized, was to be her own, and the women were waiting for her to react. She looked at them both in turn and smiled hesitantly.

“It is very good,” she said in their language. “Very fine. Thank you.”

Shalune showed her teeth in her fearsome grin, and Uluye relaxed her reserved manner enough to allow a small, prim smile. “You will eat now,” she said. “And then—” But the rest of the sentence was lost on Indigo and she shook her head in defeat.

“Permit.” It was the only word Indigo yet knew of their language that came close to an apology. “I ... am not...” But her small knowledge failed her and she made a helpless gesture.

Shalune seemed to understand and she spoke rapidly to Uluye, explaining, Indigo hoped, that their guest wasn’t yet proficient in their tongue. Uluye nodded, said something that Indigo thought meant “after,” and left the cave. Shalune watched her go and then turned back to Indigo. Her expression, with one eyebrow slightly raised, was more eloquent than any words, and it confirmed Indigo’s small but burgeoning suspicion that there was more than a modicum of dissent between the two women. Not wanting to take sides until she was better acquainted with them, Indigo kept her own expression reservedly neutral, and after a few seconds, Shalune shrugged and turned to the cooking hearth. The embers of a wood fire were glowing between the stones, and something simmered in a lidded clay pot to one side of the embers’ glowing heart.

“For you,” Shalune said, indicating the food.

Tentatively, Indigo ventured, “You will eat with me?”

Shalune shook her head emphatically. “No, no,” she said, then added a word Indigo didn’t comprehend. “I will return later. Eat, and rest.” She pantomimed someone sleeping in case Indigo hadn’t fully understood, then made a reverent salute and walked out of the cave.

Grimya, her ears pricked forward, waited until she judged that Shalune was out of earshot, then turned and looked at Indigo. “She and the other one are not the best of frr ... iends, I think,” she said aloud.