Nocturne

by Louise Cooper

  CONTENTS

  Prologue 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

  The horse came on. The rider was a middle-aged man, whose face was deathly pale, as were the hands that gripped the reins; his eyes, glazed and unseeing, stared through and beyond her.

  Indigo had seen such a look before, that dreadful air of purpose. She had a sharp twinge of premonition, and shouted a warning. “Forth, no!”

  The rider turned, the white, rigid face stared down at Forth for an instant, then so fast that Forth had no time to evade it, a short-thonged whip cracked through the air and caught him on the shoulder. Forth yelled in pain and outrage, and he tumbled out of the saddle…

  NOCTURNE

  Book Four of Indigo

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  NOCTURNE

  Copyright • 1990 by Louise Cooper

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  A slightly different version of this novel under the same title has been published in the United Kingdom by Unwin Hyman (Publishers) Ltd.

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

  49 West 24th Street

  New York, N.Y. 10010

  Cover art by Robert Gould

  ISBN: 0-812-50798-3

  First edition: June 1990

  Printed in the United States of America

  0987654321

  Night and silence—who is here?

  Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

  For Lorna

  —who is eminently qualified to be a Brabazon Fairplayer!

  •PROLOGUE•

  In the cold southernmost region of the Earth, bordering the great ice cliffs that guard the polar wastes, Cathlor Ryensson rules peaceably over his small kingdom from the great and ancient stronghold of Carn Caille. In Carn Caille’s hall, the face of Cathlor’s father, Ryen, smiles down from the portrait which since his death five years ago has hung in the place of honor above the king’s chair: and beside the portrait hangs another, its pigments a little faded by the salt air and the smoke of fires, which depicts a family group. This painting is particularly fine; so lifelike that it would be easy to imagine the four figures within the canvas rising, stretching their arms and stepping down from the frame to cross the dais and take their places at the royal table.

  But King Kalig, Imogen his queen, and his son and daughter, Kirra and Anghara, are all long dead; struck down by the fever, now commemorated only in story and ballad, that came like a plague to the Southern Isles more than a quarter of a century ago.

  Or so the world believes.

  Many of those who pass through the hall these days have no memories of Kalig and his family. Their concern is with the new dynasty founded by Ryen and now continuing through his son; and though some might pause occasionally to gaze at the painting in admiration and respect, few now can recall Imogen’s gracious voice, or Kalig’s hearty laugh.

  And no one, least of all King Cathlor, guesses even in their strangest dreams that one of Kalig’s family still lives, and that to see her now would be to see again, unaged and unchanged, the face of the serious, amber-haired girl who sits at her father’s feet in the old portrait.

  The Princess Anghara did not die with her kin; though many times down the long years she has wished it could be otherwise. She, alone among humanity, knows the true nature of the plague that slew her loved ones; for it was by her hand, and through her foolish, reckless curiosity, that an age-old law was broken, and seven demons were released shrieking and laughing into the world to set their curse upon mankind.

  One single moment, one wild and rebellious impulse; and now Anghara bears a burden of guilt and remorse that has haunted her, waking and sleeping, since the day when she cast off her name and her home, and left the Southern Isles to begin a new and bitter life as a wanderer. For she alone has the power to make reparation for her crime, by seeking out and slaying the seven demons unshackled by her hand. And until that task is done, there can be no rest for her, and no return to her homeland.

  Anghara is forgotten now. But Indigo—the new name she chose for herself, which is also the color of mourning among her people—lives on, and sometimes, in far-flung corners of the Earth, others have cause to know and remember her. She has fought with fire and she has fought with water; two demons have died by her hand, and the ghosts of many innocent souls walk in her wake. Memories crowd her mind and her uneasy dreams; and when she thinks now of her home and her kinfolk, it is with a sadness that is distanced, if not diminished, by the long years of her exile.

  But, immortal and ageless though she might be, Indigo is not entirely alone in her quest. With her travels a friend who, though not human, understands what it is to be an outcast among her own kind, and has chosen to share both Indigo’s curse and her obligation. And close behind them both travels an implacable and eternal enemy—Nemesis. Nemesis stalks Indigo like a malign shadow wherever she goes, for it is a part of herself, created from the blackest depths of her own soul and grown to independent life: the deadliest of all adversaries, a smiling child who lurks in every shadow; a tempter, a seducer, a deceiver. While Indigo lives, Nemesis will thrive—and its existence is the greatest threat of all.

  Now, guided by the lodestone which was the Earth Goddess’s gift to her, Indigo journeys through the sprawl of the great western continent. For a while she has found a kind of peace, a calm hiatus in the storm of her life. But the hiatus cannot last, and she knows that soon she must take up the threads of her dark tapestry once more. The clouds are gathering; the auguries are growing stronger. And amid the shadows of a land which is not what it seems, among friends and foes who may be interchangeable, Indigo must face the third, and perhaps the most perilous, of her trials….

  •CHAPTER•I•

  Temperance Brabazon shook his hair, soaked by the persistent drizzle, from his eyes, and listened for the distant whistle that would tell him the quarry were heading in his direction. His clothes were sodden—the short hide cloak that covered them hadn’t been designed to keep out this sort of wet—and his feet and hands were growing stiff from inactivity and cold. He flexed his toes, sending a scatter of loose shale sliding away from the ledge where he perched above the valley floor, and cursed frayed ropes and straying ponies and the filthy autumn weather.

  Suddenly the signal he’d been waiting for rang shrilly from the far end of the valley, slicing through the wet mist and carrying more emphatically than any shout. Temperance leaned forward, peering into the murk, and in the distance was just able to make out the smudge of his brother Courage’s bright red hair against the fells’ indeterminate grey-green. Cour whistled again; a sequence of four sharp notes that in the fellmen’s code meant be ready: Temperance heard hoof-beats, then three riderless ponies galloped into view, led by the little chestnut stallion who was snorting like a racehorse and kicking up clods of turf with his shaggy hooves. A second later two more ponies—carrying riders this time-appeared in their wake, while what looked like a large, grey dog ran along the valley’s gentler flank to deter the stallion and his small entourage from any thought of escape by that route.

  Temperance jumped down from the ledge as the ponies raced towards the narrow neck of the valley, and stepped into their path, shouting and waving his arms. The stallion slithered to a halt, rearing and tossing his head, but his defiance was a sham; he knew he was cornered, and as Temperance approached him he whickered a friendly greeting and began to search the boy’s hands and pockets with his muzzle, looking for tidbits. Taking their cue from him, the mares dropped their heads and began to snatch at
the lush grass, their tails switching nonchalantly.

  The two mounted ponies came up behind the little group, and their riders slid to the ground. Forthright, who at nineteen was the eldest of the Brabazon brothers, approached the stallion and slipped a halter over its head, then looked up and grinned at Temperance through his sodden auburn forelock.

  “Well done, Rance. I thought for a moment he was going to run you down.”

  “Not him.” Rance glanced at the stallion, who eyed him back wickedly. “He’s all wind, that one; a rabbit could beat him in a kicking match. Where are the other ponies?”

  “Cour’s bringing ’em.” Forth looked over his shoulder to where his fellow rider, a tall young woman dressed in a hide coat and wool riding-breeches and with her long hair in a single, practical braid, was haltering the two mares. The grey animal had come trotting down from the slope to sit near her, panting, and Forth crossed over to the creature and bent down to rub the top of its brindled head.

  “Eh, Grimya! That was a good run, uh?”

  Grimya showed her fangs in a canine laugh, and her tail wagged with pleasure. Anyone not native to these southwestern lands might have been excused for assuming that she was a domestic dog, despite her size and feral appearance. The Brabazons, though, knew better; in their years of traveling they had become well enough acquainted with wild creatures to distinguish a forest wolf from its domestic cousins. But in the past ten months, since their first meeting with her and her mistress, Grimya had become as close a friend of the family as any human.

  Forth straightened, and met the young woman’s gaze as she turned her head to smile at him. “Thanks, Indigo. If they’d got out of the valley, the Harvest Lady alone knows how long we’d have spent chasing them.”

  “Three days,” Rance put in. “That was what it took last time they chewed through their tethers, remember? I keep telling Da we need new ropes, but he says it isn’t worth it.”

  “He’s right. After next market day, they’ll be someone else’s problem.”

  Rance still looked disgruntled, but before he could argue the point further, Forth straightened and stared along the valley. “Here comes Cour with the other ponies. Stop complaining, Rance, and let’s get back to the vans before this rain drowns us all!”

  The small cavalcade set off a few minutes later. Forth led the stallion while Cour and Rance took a mare apiece, and behind the brothers the young woman whom Forth had addressed as Indigo allowed her pony to pick its own way on the narrow fell path. The weather was worsening as the morning wore on; in the last few minutes the drizzle had increased to solid, steady rain, and tattered shreds of darker grey scudded under the lowering belly of the cloud-mass that stretched from horizon to horizon. Visibility was down to a few yards; anything beyond that was hidden in wet murk, and somewhere off to her right Indigo could hear the chatter of a swollen stream.

  Grimya, who was trotting a few paces ahead of her, looked back over her shoulder, and a voice spoke in Indigo’s mind.

  I am glad we caught the ponies so quickly. This is a day for firesides, not for running.

  Indigo smiled at the observation, and projected a silent reply. We’ll be back at the fireside soon enough, dear one. I only hope that Charity has saved us some breakfast!

  The Brabazons were unaware, she knew, of the extraordinary exchange between herself and the wolf; the mutation that enabled Grimya to understand human speech, and the strange telepathic link that the two shared, were part of an old and closely kept secret between them. For a quarter of a century Indigo and Grimya had been companions on a journey that had taken them across the face of the Earth, and whose end lay in a distant and unknown future. And the unlikely bond between a human woman, born a king’s daughter in the Southern Isles, and a mutant animal whose “affliction” had made her an outcast among her own kind, concealed a stranger and deeper secret; for through those long and often turbulent years together, Indigo and Grimya had borne the stigma of immortality. To Grimya, it was a boon, granted at her own request by the great Earth Goddess; but to Indigo, the knowledge that she would not age, would not change, was an almost unbearable burden—for it lay at the heart of the curse that her own foolishness had brought on herself and on the world. And until her journey and her quest were over, she would have no release from it.

  A quarter of a century … she blinked rain from her eyelashes and looked at the three red-haired figures riding ahead of her. In the year that Forth, the eldest, was born, she and Grimya had been in the blazing lands far to the north, facing a corrupt and deadly adversary whose memory could still bring her screaming and sweating from monstrous nightmares. As Rance learned to toddle, they had begun their long sojourn in eastern Khimiz, trapped by the deceits of the Serpent-Eater. And now, it seemed, the cycle was beginning again.

  With a gesture that over the years had become as familiar as breathing, Indigo reached up and touched a small leather pouch that hung from a thong about her neck. The leather was old and cracked; inside, she felt the hard contours of the small pebble that she’d carried with her since her journey began. The lodestone, gift of the Earth Mother, which guided her unerringly and unceasingly in her quest. And for the third time the golden pinpoint which lay at the stone’s center had awakened, to pulse like a tiny, living heart and show her that the next battle she must face was close at hand.

  She let her arm drop back to the saddle pommel, staring down at the pony’s wet, shaggy withers as it plodded stoically on. Time and again since the lodestone had shown her its clear message she had prayed that the Brabazons would not become embroiled in whatever lay in store for her on this particular road. They had been first saviors and then staunch friends to her and to Grimya since their first, chance meeting, and it would be a bitter irony to repay their kindness by leading them into danger. Enough innocents had died to further her cause: she wanted there to be no more.

  For a while the procession trudged on in silence. Grimya, though she was aware of Indigo’s uneasy thoughts, knew also that they would pass in their own good time and so said nothing; no one else felt inclined to talk, and even the little stallion’s exuberance was defeated by the weather. The path was leading them towards the top of a gentle escarpment, where a small flock of sheep huddled disconsolately, pale blurs in the downpour. They reached the crest of the rise—and suddenly Forth held up a hand, signaling the others to halt. He stood in his stirrups, looking down the far slope, then turned back and beckoned urgently for his companions to join him. As they gathered round, he pointed down over the edge.

  “Look.” His voice was low-pitched, quiet. “There’s another of them.”

  Fifty feet or so below their vantage point, a drove road wound along the foot of the scarp. On the road was a solitary horseman, uncloaked, hatless, and seemingly oblivious to the rain that pelted down on his head and shoulders. He held his horse on an unnaturally tight rein, and stared directly, unswervingly ahead of him, as though following some lure which only he could see.

  Cour whistled softly between his teeth, but Rance drew back, looking uneasily at his eldest brother. “He might not be one of them, Forth. The others we saw were going northwards, not east.”

  “You weren’t with Cour and Esty and me when we saw the third one,” Forth said. “She was heading southwest. We told you about it, remember? I don’t think the direction’s got much to do with it.”

  “All the same, he might—”

  “There’s one way to find out,” Cour cut in. “Hail him, Forth. Let’s see if he responds.”

  Forth glanced inquiringly at Rance, who shrugged.

  “All right,” Forth said, and turned again in his saddle, cupping both hands to his mouth.

  “Ho-la!” The ponies jumped, startled, as the shout rang out. “Stranger! Up here!”

  The call bounced and echoed back from the fells, but though the horse below them tossed its head uneasily, its rider didn’t respond. Forth shouted again and the horse whickered; but the man only tightened the reins still f
urther, forcing it onward.

  Rance reached out and touched Forth’s shoulder. “Best leave it, Forth. There’s nothing we can do.”

  “No.” Forth shook his head. “I’m going to go down, intercept him and see if I can find out what’s to do.”

  “You can go alone, then.”

  Forth looked at the others. “Cour? Indigo?”

  “I’ll come with you.” Indigo was still watching the solitary rider. Though she shared Rance’s unease, her curiosity was aroused. And at the back of her mind lurked a less pleasant feeling; an intuitive sensation that told her there was more significance to this than any of them yet knew.

  Grimya, picking up the thought, spoke silently to her. I think you may be right. Let us go and see.

  Cour elected to stay behind with Rance, and so Forth handed over the little stallion and told his brothers to take the easier path and meet him and Indigo at the crossroads a mile on. The others moved away, and they set their ponies at the scarp’s edge, leaning back in the saddles for the steep descent. As the ponies slipped and slithered down the slope, Indigo watched the rider below them and recalled the previous bizarre encounters to which Forth had referred. She had seen two of the other travelers for herself—the first had been an elderly man, on foot, who had passed the Brabazons’ camp four days ago as a sullen dusk was falling. She and Charity had been tending the cooking fire and, following the local custom of hailing strangers to show they meant no threat, had called out a greeting. The man ignored them, and walked on with an odd, stiff-legged gait. In the gathering gloom Indigo had noticed that his face had a ghastly pallor. Then two days later, Forth, Cour and their sister Esty had encountered a second lonely walker, a woman this time, with the same dead-whiteness to her skin, who again seemed to be oblivious to her surroundings; and that same evening the third traveler had passed the camp on horseback, moving with the steady but mindless determination of a sleepwalker or a man in a trance. They had all looked more like apparitions than living human beings, and the chill, silent aura that hung about them had turned Indigo’s stomach queasy. Who they were, where they were going or why, she couldn’t begin to imagine. And despite her curiosity, she had the unpleasant conviction that she didn’t want to know the answer.