Nocturne

by Louise Cooper

  Forth, who had been watching her, said speculatively, “I wonder if it’s drinkable?”

  “I wouldn’t risk it,” Indigo cautioned. “Even if it’s not poisonous, it might affect us in ways we couldn’t predict.”

  “Yes … all the same, though,” Forth reached into his pack and pulled out a small boiling-can that, before the fiasco with the fire, had been intended as a cooking utensil. “I’d like to look at it more closely.” Crossing the shingle, he crouched down by the pool’s edge and, taking care not to touch the water with his bare hand, dipped the can in.

  “It’s so clear, the reflection’s just like looking in a mirror,” he called back. “If it wasn’t for the ripples, you’d never believe it was water and not—Earth’s blood, what’s this?”

  Startled by the sudden oath, Indigo and Esty looked up quickly, and Indigo said, “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t think I believe it … come and look!”

  They went to join him and peered at the can he held. It was empty—and the surface was quite dry.

  “I dipped it in the water,” Forth insisted. “Damn it, I saw the ripples, I saw the thrice-blasted thing filling!” He thrust the can at her. “Try for yourself, and you’ll see.”

  Indigo leaned out over the pool and plunged the can under the surface. Ripples, as Forth had said; and water flowed over the lip. But when she lifted the can again, it was as though she drew it out from a mirage: it was dry, and empty.

  Forth, on his knees now, reached towards the pool surface and, very tentatively, touched it. “It feels like water,” he said uncertainly, and let his whole hand slip under to the first finger-joint. “Wet, and cool.” He flipped the hand, and there was a splash, like a small fish jumping. Then he withdrew his fingers and, without comment, showed them to Indigo and Esty.

  His hand was dry.

  “Water,” he said, “and yet not water. What do you make of it?”

  Indigo gazed thoughtfully at the pool. This new discovery made her feel inexplicably resentful; as though someone or something had laid this pretty but useless image in their path as an unkind joke. Aloud, she said: “I wonder how many travelers in this world have been lured here by a promise of water, only to find that whoever set the lure had an unpleasant sense of humor?”

  Forth looked surprised. “You think it was deliberately placed?”

  She sighed. “I’m beginning to think that everything in this world is far more deliberately and carefully contrived than we realize. I feel …” She hesitated, rising to her feet and pacing as she searched for the right word. “Manipulated. That’s the only term I can give it. As though since we broke through the thorn barrier, we’ve been like puppets dancing on strings.”

  “But without knowing who the puppet master is?”

  “Oh, no. I know the answer to that question; at least in essence.” Indigo hugged herself, staring up at the remote, featureless sky. “But it’s so elusive. I’d anticipated a tangible enemy, something I could see and assess and challenge. This, though,” she indicated the pool, the moor beyond, with a sweep of one arm, “is like …”

  “Looking for one special flea on an old dog,” Esty put in.

  Despite her mood, Indigo couldn’t help but laugh. “One flea among many,” she said. “I wonder how our unseen host would react to such a comparison? But seriously, I do feel that we’re being toyed with. The illusions, the images, the peculiar phenomena—it’s as if they’re all set to divert us from the path we should be following. We may have got into this demon-world, but it’s like a temple to the Goddess, where the outer courtyards and public rooms tell only half the story. We haven’t yet penetrated the veil that hangs before the sanctum. Do you understand what I mean?”

  “Yes,” Forth said. “But in a temple—at least, in the ones I’ve seen—only the Goddess’s own servants are allowed to go through the veil.”

  Indigo had continued to pace as they talked, but now she paused and looked keenly at Forth. Unwittingly, he had made a remark that might be significant; for if the parallel he drew held true, then perhaps only the servants of the demon entity which had created this world might be able to pass beyond the outer shell of illusion and trickery to the real core beyond.

  Or if not its servants, then its victims …

  Suddenly she felt a quick, unlooked for stab of prescience, as though some sardonic intelligence had read her thoughts even as they took form. And seconds later, carried from a great distance on the still air, the voice of a hunting wolf cut through the night in a long-drawn, ululating howl.

  Esty jumped like a shot rabbit, and the short hairs on Indigo’s scalp and neck prickled. Forth, also shaken but trying not to show it, stared out beyond the reach of the pool’s strange radiance, trying to penetrate into the nether darkness.

  “They’re still out there.” He sounded awed, angry and frightened together.

  Esty shivered. “And they sound as though they’re waiting for us.” She glanced at her brother, then at Indigo. “What are we going to do? If we move on, they may ambush us; but if we stay here they might close in!”

  Indigo considered for a few moments. Whatever they decided to do, sheer necessity would oblige them to strike camp again before too long, as it seemed that, despite her hope, they couldn’t go without food or sleep. She herself hadn’t slept at their last camp, and was beginning to feel the effects of that deprivation. It would surely be safer to stay by the pool, where at least the light would give them some protection against any surprise attack. Fully refreshed, they’d be far better prepared for whatever might await them on the open moor.

  Forth and Esty agreed immediately with her suggestion when she put it to them; though Esty was honest enough to admit that it was, as she wryly put it, like being asked to choose between death by fire and death by water. They chose a place on the far side of the pool and after a hasty meal-there seemed no point in attempting the ritual of lighting a fire—Indigo and Esty settled to rest while Forth took the first watch. Indigo had feared that sleep might not come easily; but, to her relief, only minutes after closing her eyes she felt consciousness beginning to drift away. She dreamed strange, fragmented dreams of dark woods where a voice she knew and loved, but to which she couldn’t give a name, called to her from a distance, urging her to follow, its sound swelling and fading as she searched vainly for the source. And when she woke at last, a leaden weight of sadness had lodged somewhere deep in her. It fled as she shook off the last dregs of sleep, but the memory of it was acute and disturbing.

  Forth was sitting with his back to the pool, staring out at the moor, and Indigo was surprised to see Esty beside him. She’d slept for a while, Esty explained, but had woken suddenly and, unable to settle again, had elected to keep Forth company during the remainder of his watch. Nothing had disturbed their vigil—the wolves, it seemed, had either chosen to stay silent or had slunk away to new territory—and now Forth, trying to disguise his yawns, went gratefully to the makeshift couch and curled up to sleep.

  Indigo settled beside Esty, and smiled at her. “Are you sure you don’t want to rest?” she asked. “I’ll be content enough with my own company.”

  Esty returned the smile and shook her head. “No. I’m wide awake: I won’t sleep again now.”

  She seemed, Indigo thought, oddly keyed up. Her green eyes were faintly feverish and her manner a little self-conscious, as though she was trying to hide some emotion about which she felt either embarrassed or ashamed; and Indigo said tentatively, “Esty, is anything wrong?”

  “Wrong? Why, no!” Then a hesitation as Esty realized that the denial had been too quick, too glib. She laughed. It sounded contrived. “Well … I had some strange dreams while I slept. And when I woke, I felt so sad.”

  Indigo looked at her with new interest. “What were the dreams about?”

  Esty’s face flushed. “I’d rather not talk about them.” A quick, almost furtive smile. “You might laugh at me.”

  “I promise you, I’ll do no s
uch thing.”

  “All the same …” Esty looked away, and tossed her hair back. “Ohh … I feel so grimy. I wish I could bathe in that pool!”

  “Don’t attempt it,” Indigo cautioned, though her mind was still distracted, pondering Esty’s peculiar evasiveness.

  “I wouldn’t, of course. Though I did try to wash my hands earlier.” She spread her fingers and contemplated them. “It was strange. It felt as though my hands were under water, though when I took them out they were still dry, like Forth said, and the dirt wouldn’t rinse off.”

  “Whatever that pool contains, it certainly isn’t water,” Indigo agreed. “Yet another form of illusion, I suspect. And that worries me, Esty, because it means that there may be no water anywhere in this dimension. And if that’s true, then when our own supplies run out we’ll be in a great deal of trouble.”

  Esty said vaguely, “Yes, I suppose we will,” and Indigo realized that she hadn’t been paying attention, but instead was staring towards the pool with a thoughtful frown on her face.

  “Esty?” She reached out to touch the girl’s arm.

  “What? Oh—I’m sorry. I was looking at the pool.” Esty blinked, and the frown turned into an odd little smile. “Do you know, Indigo, that if you sit and look into the water, you can sometimes see the strangest reflections; almost like pictures of another world.”

  Something in her tone, redolent of her earlier fey mood, alerted an uneasy instinct within Indigo. “What do you mean?” she asked cautiously.

  “Come and see for yourself.” Esty got up and walked to the pool’s edge, where she crouched down in the shingle and peered over. “We’ll see nothing but our own faces at first. But after a while, something seems to change. It’s quite beautiful.”

  Warily, Indigo knelt beside her and looked into the pool. Against the blank, charcoal-dark reflection of the sky, their images gazed back at them; her own face angular and bony, Esty’s sharper, more feline and more youthful. But some quality in the pool had sapped color from the reflections, giving their skins—which in reality were both tanned from the summer—a sickly, parchment look, and dulling Esty’s vivid red hair to the shade of neglected brass.

  Esty leaned forward a little further, and blew on the pool’s surface so that the two mirror images fragmented in a scatter of ripples. As the ripples died away, the picture reformed, and just before it swam back into focus Indigo glimpsed—or thought she glimpsed, for it appeared and vanished in a single instant—what looked like a strange and lovely garden behind their own reflections. A lawn, starred with flowers, led away to a gate set in an old and mellow wall, shaded by slender trees whose branches swept down almost to the ground. And, framed by the garden’s eerie beauty, a disembodied face, ghostly and barely formed, hovered between herself and Esty.

  “There!” Esty hissed in an exultant whisper, pointing. “Did you see?”

  Indigo looked sidelong at the excited girl. “I saw a garden. And someone’s face. Or I thought I did, but—”

  “Yes. Oh, yes.” Esty was staring into the pool more intently than ever, as though silently and furiously willing the phantom to reappear. “It was him again; just as I saw him before.”

  “Him?” Indigo queried uneasily. Her heart had missed painfully with the shock of the momentary vision; now it seemed to slow to a crawling, suffocating beat. “Esty—who is he?”

  Esty shook her head. “I don’t know. But he looks so beautiful, and so sad.” She leaned at a perilous angle, then gave another soft cry. “There! He’s there again—look.”

  This time there was no sign of the unearthly garden; but the face had reformed, blurred a little by the water but still clearly visible. It was a young man’s countenance, but thin and narrow and deadly white, with eyes that seemed to be no more than vivid but colorless pinpoints in deep and hollow sockets. Its expression combined savage intensity with a chilling, unhuman longing, and Indigo’s momentary fascination was overtaken suddenly by a surge of revulsion. She reached out, meaning to pull Esty away, but Esty misinterpreted the movement and took her fingers in a tight grip, as though acknowledging some deep, shared secret. Then she raised her other hand in a gesture that warned Indigo to silence, and slowly, carefully, turned to look behind them. Pulse quickening again, Indigo, too, turned—but there was no one there. Only their own thin and insubstantial shadows cast by the pool’s light, and the darkly shimmering moor beyond.

  Esty swung back to face the water, hunching so that the heavy mass of her hair obscured her face. But Indigo had already seen her expression: the extraordinary flare of avid pleasure, followed by frustration and disappointment as hope was thwarted. Swiftly Indigo, too, looked at the pool again; but the disembodied face had vanished and the surface reflected only their own bleached figures.

  “Ahh …” Esty’s sigh was soft, and something about it made Indigo’s flesh creep. “I’d thought perhaps he might…” She broke off and shook her head.

  Indigo watched her in silent, clenching horror. For a moment, when the apparition had appeared for the second time, its eyes had seemed to drive like hot nails into her own and through to the skull beyond, locking her mind and body with the burning intensity of their stare. And like Esty, she had felt the upsurge of an emotion that was part pity and part longing and part desire. An agonizing needing, an unhuman lure.

  But the spell hadn’t had the power to hold her. Indigo knew the nature of demons only too well, and in the instant when she pulled back from the lure of the vision she had sensed its mocking acknowledgment and dismissal. She wasn’t a ready victim; therefore she was of no interest. Esty, though, was another matter.

  “Esty.” She turned towards the girl and took hold of both her hands, taking care not to let her voice betray the alarm she felt. “Esty, there was no one there. What we saw wasn’t real. It was another illusion; like the wolves, and the Jachanine.”

  Esty gave her a long look. Then: “Yes,” she said quietly. “You’re right, Indigo; that’s what it must have been.”

  She averted her gaze as she spoke, casting her lashes down so that her eyes weren’t visible. Indigo hesitated, unsure if the. girl had truly taken in what she’d said, then added gently, cajolingly. “You understand what I mean, don’t you? And you do believe it?”

  Esty looked up again and smiled at her with an odd brilliance. “Of course I do.”

  But the agreement was too glib, the capitulation too easy. And Esty’s expression had just the smallest hint of slyness; something which Indigo had never seen in her before. Esty was hiding behind a bland pretence, and, recalling again the phantom face and the power of its sighing, yearning lure. The unpleasant possibility occurred to Indigo that perhaps there had been more to the apparition than mere illusion. She had looked into its eyes, and had seen a little of what lurked there. It was enough—more than enough—to entrap an unwary and impressionable soul as a spider might prey on a fly.

  She opened her mouth to appeal to Esty again, but the words died on her tongue. There was nothing she could say. Her reasoning didn’t accord with what Esty wanted to hear, and no amount of persuasion would sway matters. Esty would simply continue to pay lip-service to whatever arguments were voiced, whilst keeping her true feelings a close secret.

  Once more, Indigo glanced back at the pool. The surface was an innocent mirror now, reflecting only the featureless pewter sheen of the sky overhead. She couldn’t talk to Esty; and she felt that, as yet, it would be wiser to say nothing to Forth. She had, after all, no more than an unproven suspicion to confide; and besides, she didn’t want to alert Esty and make her more secretive still. But from now on, she would need to watch the girl very carefully. And, she thought, wolves or no wolves, she would be thankful when this rest was over and they could move on; for if her growing fear had any foundation, then the hungry, unhuman thing that haunted the pool might prove far more dangerous than anything they had yet encountered.

  To Indigo’s intense relief, the remainder of the watch was uneventful. Esty, des
pite her earlier protestations, fell asleep after a while, curled like a cat at the edge of the shingle. Now and then Indigo glanced at her, and tried to ignore the chilly frisson that shivered through her when she saw the strange, small smile on Esty’s unguarded lips.

  There were no more phantoms, no distant wolf-cries. Perhaps if she’d looked into the pool again Indigo might have caught another glimpse of the eerie garden and its occupant; but she was was keenly aware of the pitfalls of such a temptation, and instead simply sat staring out at the black moor, until at last Forth stirred and awoke.

  Forth was refreshed from his sleep, and, as Indigo had hoped, restless and anxious to be taking action. He agreed instantly to her suggestion that they should forego the third watch—which would have been Esty’s—and move on without any further delay; and when Esty herself was roused, she too seemed eager to be away. Indigo was surprised and a little troubled by her easy acquiescence, but tried to put the worry from her mind as they packed up their belongings and made ready to go.

  The only bone of contention between them was the route they should take. Forth was for heading on in the same direction from which they’d approached the pool: there was no reason for the feeling, he said, it just seemed logical if they were to avoid the risk of mistakenly circling back to their starting point. But Esty had other ideas. They should strike out to the left of that line, she said, and as she spoke Indigo saw again the faint slyness creep into her eyes. Like Forth, she had no real reason for the suggestion; it was simply a feeling.

  Forth shrugged and looked at Indigo. “If Esty has an instinct, I’m willing to gamble on it,” he said carelessly. “She does this now and then: her intuition, Da calls it. And she’s right more often than not.” He smiled. “After all, we’ve nothing to lose, have we?”

  His words were unwittingly ironic, but Indigo couldn’t argue without revealing her suspicions. “Very well,” she said. “Let Esty lead us.”

  Was there a flicker of triumph in Esty’s eyes? Hard to be sure; and easy to let imagination run away with her. None the less, as they completed their preparations she had the distinct feeling that Esty was taking care to keep a distance between them—until, as they scoured the ground for anything that might inadvertantly have been left behind, Indigo heard the shingle crunch behind her, and Esty moved to stand at her elbow.