Louise Cooper - Indigo 06 - Avatar (27 page)

“My name, madam, is Indigo.” Indigo paused for a moment, then added: “As I believe you know very well.”

Shalune hissed, horrified by such recklessness. Again there was a long silence while Indigo and the Lady regarded each other, and Indigo realized with the first stirrings of disquiet that her initial assessment of this being had been wrong. She’d sensed from the first that the Ancestral Lady had power, but believing that she knew what she truly was, Indigo had assumed that her strength was built on false foundations. She had good reason for her belief: in the past, when dealing with the demons of the Charchad and of Simhara, and later in tangling with the shadowy life-devourer of Bruhome and the monstrous but intangible curse of Earl Bray of the Redoubt, she had learned that demons were never quite what they seemed. Their power was real enough, but at each encounter their limitations had proved to be far greater than she had been led to believe. Tapestries of deceit, spiderwebs of illusion and intrigue ... yet they had had no more substance than a spiderweb, for their fabric had crumbled when the truth behind their trickeries was revealed.

This demon, though, was different. Why she sensed it and why she believed it, Indigo couldn’t tell, but she was growing momently more certain that the power the Ancestral Lady wielded was no mere shade. This creature had substance. She was as real, every bit as real, as Indigo herself—and suddenly Indigo began to feel out of her depth.

At last the Ancestral Lady’s dark lips parted once more. “I think that you are beginning to understand, Indigo,” she said. “You still have a long way to go, but a beginning is better than nothing. Do you fear me?”

Heat stifled Indigo’s throat; she opened her mouth to deny the question but found suddenly that the words she wanted weren’t there. The Lady’s cold, quirkish smile flickered briefly once more.

“Of course you fear me,” she said, answering her own question before Indigo could marshal her thoughts. “Who does not? I have never yet encountered a human soul that has no fear of what awaits it beyond death.”

“You are not death ...”

“No. But death and I are cohorts of long standing, and what death begins, I see through to its conclusion. There are many possible conclusions, oracle. The very few who truly please me in life earn peace in my realm, and the sleep that knows no dreams. Others may be granted another kind of life as one among many of my servants, and that, too, can be a boon. But there are always some who, by their deeds or by their words, blaspheme against me and refuse to accept me as their suzeraine. For them there is only the mindless, ceaseless hunger of the
hushu
, for I devour their souls and I give no sanctuary to their bodies, and thus they can neither live nor die, but may only
exist
.” She paused, her eyes like coals within their pale aura. “Which fate would
you
choose, oracle?”

Indigo’s pulse was hard, rapid and painful, but she forced herself not to flinch. “I would choose none of these, Lady.” she said. “My loyalties—and my beliefs—lie elsewhere.”

“Do they?” The Ancestral Lady inclined her head, an odd, birdlike movement. “We shall see, oracle. We shall see.”

Then her head turned, and the silver-black gaze fastened on Shalune and Inuss. They shrank back; Inuss was shaking uncontrollably, and Shalune seemed little better. Their courage had crumbled to dust.

“Why do you weep, candidate?” Suddenly the Lady’s voice took on a new, cruel edge. “What hides in your heart that your tears betray? Is it love? Or is it fear?” She paused, then: “Take off your mask.”

Inuss made a terrible sound, midway between a moan and a cry of pain. Convulsively she wrenched at the wooden mask, breaking the catches in her clumsy haste; several of the bone ornaments fell to the stone floor, and then the thing was off and her stricken face—slick with perspiration and ugly with strain—stared at her goddess.

The Ancestral Lady said: “Bring the mask to me, my child. Place it in my hands.”

Inuss didn’t want to approach her, but nor did she dare disobey. She rose unsteadily to her feet, shuffled to the lake’s edge. The boat was too far out for her to reach; implacably the Lady waited, and at last Inuss stepped down into the water. Indigo heard her suck in a harsh breath as the water swirled about her knees, her thighs, her hips. She waded out, then held up the mask with a despairing, imploring gesture, bowing her head.

The goddess stretched out one hand, and her long, black-nailed fingers touched the mask. Her nostrils flared; then slowly, slowly, she drew her hand back. An awful light, cold as the aura in her eyes, flared about her frame and hurled her momentarily into black silhouette, and she spoke in a voice that sent a shock wave through Indigo’s blood.

“
You are not the one who was chosen to serve me. You have come in the place of another!
”

Inuss howled in terror and covered her face with her hands. Shalune started to her feet, her arms outstretched imploringly. “Lady, I beg you—”

“
Silence
!” Echoes ricocheted around the cavern. “You, who have connived with a traitor, do you dare to speak? Do you think me ignorant of your deeds? Ah, Shalune my servant, I had expected better from you.”

“No!” Shalune cried. “Lady, we are not traitors! We want only what’s best, what’s right—”

“Right?” Novae flared in the depths of the Ancestral Lady’s eyes. “Who are you to judge what is right, Shalune? You have gone against the will of your High Priestess, who is my chosen servant. You have cheated her—and thus you have cheated me. Answer me, Shalune—who sanctions what you shall do in serving your goddess? Who is your goddess’s avatar in the world of mortals?”

Shalune’s jaw worked spasmodically. “Ul... Uluye ... is your chosen avatar.”

“And in whose name does Uluye speak? Who judges what is right, Shalune?
Who
?”

“Y ... you, my Lady. You only.”

“Yes, Shalune;
I
judge. Do you accept my judgment?”

Shalune’s face was a study in agonized, adoring tragedy. She truly loved this monstrous being, Indigo realized; and though the love had its roots in terror, it was nonetheless as real as the love of a child for its mother, a woman for her lover, a foolish and helpless dog for a hard master who one day,
one
day, might grant unutterable joy by condescending to be kind.

“I accept your judgment, sweet Lady,” Shalune said, and her voice broke on the last syllable. “I am yours.
We
are yours. Whatever your will, we shall obey.”

For what seemed like an eternity, there was silence. Indigo wanted to intervene, but she didn’t know what she could say or what she could do; a single word at the wrong moment or in the wrong place might only make matters worse. Shalune and Inuss stood motionless. Inuss, pathetic now, still stood waist-deep in the lake, her elaborate robe clinging wetly about her. The Ancestral Lady gazed at them both, her eyes hard and her face unreadable. Then she spoke. Her voice had lost its brief edge of emotion and was cold once more.

“I judge you an unworthy sponsor, Shalune, for you have brought me a postulant who is not of your High Priestess’s choosing. You have defied your High Priestess’s will, and in so doing, you have defied me.” She looked down. “As for you, Inuss, you have conspired with your mentor in disobedience and deceit. I do not give my blessing to such as you. You are fit neither to return to your own realm, nor to dwell within mine.”

A pause, during which Indigo saw Shalune’s eyes grow round and blank with horror. Then the Ancestral Lady said with dire finality: “You know in your hearts that you are guilty. And you know the penalty for what you have done. Your souls are forfeit to me. And I name you among the lifeless, yet deathless ones. I name you
hushu
.”

“No! You demon, you evil hellspawn,
you can’t do that
”

Indigo’s scream echoed through the huge cavern, sending a shock wave of echoes shouting and clashing in the gloom. The Ancestral Lady’s head flicked around; she gave Indigo, one disinterested glance—and a tremendous force plucked Indigo off her feet and hurled her backward. She hit the wall and crashed to the floor, pain hammering through her and a scarlet mist flaring blindingly in her brain. Her mouth opened, but she had no breath in her lungs with which to scream again or to even make the smallest sound; all she could do was to sprawl on the hard rock, battling to hold her spinning senses together, and watch as a horror unfolded that she could do nothing to avert.

Inuss was wailing on a high, shrill note. She turned about clumsily and made a frantic bid to flounder back toward the shore, but before she had taken two paces, the Lady tossed the mask aside, and as it hit the water with a hollow splash, she grasped hold of Inuss’s hair. The wail became a panic-stricken shriek; Inuss struggled, but she was drawn back inexorably and raised up until her feet cleared the water. Her eyes, bulging in their sockets now, met the Lady’s implacable stare—and suddenly she ceased to fight. In the space of a moment, the will to resist left her, and she simply hung limp from the dark figure’s grasp, her mouth slack as her cries died away into silence.

The Lady’s eyes flared; she said one word.

“
Obey.
”

There was a moment’s stillness; then a slight tremor ran through Inuss’s body, and her eyes glazed as intelligence, consciousness and life fled from her. It was simple, swift, devastating. The Ancestral Lady opened her hands and Inuss’s corpse dropped into the water. There was a splash, the glitter of fracturing reflections, and for a few moments after the sounds faded, the silence was absolute. Two feet from the boat’s side, Inuss floated. Her hair and her ribboned robe swirled around her like many-colored strands of waterweed; ripples spread out in gentle circles from her body, and her eyes stared up calmly at the cave’s roof; the expression on her face was, obscenely, utterly peaceful.

The Ancestral Lady didn’t spare her so much as a glance. Her eyes had focused on Shalune, and the unhuman gaze held the priestess transfixed.

“Shalune,” she said. “Come to me. Come.”

From where she still sprawled by the cavern wall, Indigo watched in a state of frozen, silent helplessness. She had witnessed the atrocity of Inuss’s murder—there was no other word for it—through a daze of shock and pain, but her mind, still floundering in the aftermath of the Lady’s violence toward her, couldn’t accept that it had happened. Physically as well as mentally stunned, she had convinced herself that this was some mad dream, and she couldn’t unravel the skeins of nightmare frdm the harsher threads of truth.

Passive, uncomprehending, Indigo watched Shalune start forward across the floor. There was terror in the fat woman’s eyes, yet her face was fixed in that same look of awful adoration. She knew what awaited her, but no power on earth could have persuaded her to defy her goddess. She had accepted her fate as right and just, and though she might not go gladly, she went without question and without a murmur of protest. Somewhere inside, Indigo was silently crying:
Shalune! Shalune, don’t! It’s a lie, it’s a fraud, don’t go to her!
But somehow her protest didn’t seem to have any meaning. To call out with her physical voice, or even to try to stagger to her feet, would be pointless; the ability was beyond her. This wasn’t happening, it wasn’t real. It
couldn’t
be.

As if sensing what was in Indigo’s mind, Shalune turned to gaze at her. A look of ineffable sadness and sweetness had transformed her coarse and heavy features, as though the years had been stripped from her and she had become a child again, innocent, untrammeled, free of all taint. There wasn’t a spark of intelligence in the blank pits of her eyes.

Still incapable of comprehending, Indigo watched the fat woman step into the lake. Shalune waded toward the boat, ignoring the floating corpse of Inuss, then stopped within hand’s reach of the gunwale. The water lapped at her breasts; she looked up at the Ancestral Lady but didn’t speak.

The Lady gazed down. “Shalune, are you my servant?”

Shalune’s voice was barely recognizable; here, too, the helpless child had taken control. “I am, Lady.”

“Have you wronged me?”

A pause. Then: “I... have wronged you.”

The gaunt figure nodded. “Tell me the punishment for such transgression, Shalune.”

The second pause was longer. Shalune seemed to be struggling with herself, striving not to speak. But at last the words came.

“The punishment is ... death.”

The Lady inclined her head. “
Obey
,” she said, gently. Shalune bowed her head; again there was a moment’s stillness, again the faint tremor. Indigo saw Shalune’s body slip into the water with a quiet splash as life fled from her, but it meant nothing. The lake subsided; silence fell again.

The Ancestral Lady’s emotionless voice said, “Do you understand a little more now, Indigo?”

There in the dark lake beside Inuss, her hands clasped on her breast as though in a gesture of piety, Shalune’s body rose and fell, rose and fell, on the water’s slight swell. Indigo spoke, her voice sounding peculiarly detached and dreamlike in her own ears. “They look so ... peaceful.”

“Peaceful?” There was thin contempt in the Ancestral Lady’s tone, and it made a sudden small breach in the barrier that Indigo’s mind had built around itself. “No, I don’t think so. They have only the reward they have earned, no more and no less.” She turned fractionally and looked back toward the lake’s far reaches, invisible in the dark. “They may leave now,” she said, and gestured carelessly with one hand.

A new ripple spread to the lake’s edge, and the two corpses began to move. Slowly, but surely, with no visible force to propel them, they turned about until they were perfectly aligned together, then started to drift away, past the boat, beyond it, out toward the deeper regions of the lake. An unseen current caught and snared them; they twisted suddenly on an eddy, then gained speed and, side by side, floated away into the blackness and vanished in the direction of the far, invisible shore.

The boat rocked slightly as the Ancestral Lady turned again. She picked up her discarded oar, and her eyes, with their white-hot corona, focused upon Indigo.