Nocturne

by Louise Cooper

  Indigo made an unhuman sound and stumbled backwards, only to flail to a halt again as she recalled the shuffling feet, behind as well as before her. Breathing hoarsely, raggedly, as though there was no air to sustain her, she tried to croak a denial. “No … oh, no …”

  “We’ve been searching for you, Indigo.” Stead’s mouth widened in a doleful smile that revealed crumbling, blackened teeth. “We knew you’d come after us, Chari and me, we knew you’d come, because you’re a good, brave girl, and you wouldn’t abandon your friends in their trouble. So we searched and we searched, and we’ve found you, and now we’re all together again.”

  Indigo fought frantically against the panic that threatened to unhinge her. This wasn’t real! It was another game, another illusion—she had to keep believing that, had to—

  “Indigo.” Stead’s image spoke again in that dead, dreadful monotone. “You tried, girl. You did your best. But we should have known better, eh? There’s no point in fighting any more, because you can’t hope to win. None of us can. We know that now.” The smile became wider still, like the rictus of a naked skull. “We’re all here, Indigo. It went back, you see; it went back to Bruhome, and it called the others, and they all came to be with their Da again.”

  From all around Indigo came an eerie, muted mumbling; the sound of many voices in wordless agreement. Her stomach heaved convulsively; she dragged breath into her straining lungs and looked wildly to either side.

  “No…. You’re not Stead. You’re not!”

  “But I was.”

  “No! You’re phantoms! You, and all the filthy legion crawling around you—you’re all phantoms!”

  The figure of Stead laughed, sorrowfully and, she thought, almost pityingly. Then he flung his head back, and in a voice chillingly like that of the Stead she had known, the showman, the entertainer, he roared:

  “Light!”

  There was a ferocious, sputtering hiss. And along the hitherto invisible walls of the garden, two rows of glaring, ghostly blue flamboys blazed into life. Like a stage curtain going up, the scene lifted out of blackness into cold brilliance—and there, poised dramatically before the iron gate, and laughing, stood Esty.

  Understanding exploded into Indigo’s mind. She whirled round—then cried out in appalled revulsion as she saw for the first time the visions that surrounded her.

  Chari, Cour, Rance, Harmony, Honi—the entire Brabazon family stood in the glare of the torches. Their dead eyes glittered silver, their rotting hands were linked to form a chain, their decayed faces smiled a hideous welcome. And slowly, slowly, they all began to move in an awful travesty of a circle dance, faster and faster around Indigo, while behind them Esty’s laughing figure warped and changed and started to take on the form of a tall, gaunt man with jet black hair, sickly white skin and eyes that burned in their hollow sockets like dull, lethal furnaces.

  Indigo was trying to scream, but her voice wouldn’t obey her. Like a puppet jerking on a string out of control she twisted wildly about, stumbling, struggling to break the dancers’ mad circle. Faces bobbed and loomed at her, driving her back: Stead with his smashed teeth, Chari, smiling sweetly, Piety, mad-eyed and giggling, her scalp showing leprous where clumps of her hair had fallen or been torn out. They wouldn’t let her go; “they were tightening the ring about her. And the orchestrator of their gruesome revels, the dark, demonic avatar who had masqueraded as Esty with such appalling conviction, was stalking towards the circle, one arm outstretched, palm turned up in a mockery of greeting and his terrible gaze fixed hungrily on Indigo’s face.

  The dancing ring parted, wavered for a single instant and then closed again. The demon had slipped into the circle like a shadow, and as she looked into his eyes Indigo felt a numbing paralysis begin to creep from the soles of her feet, through her legs and into her body. She tried to resist, but it was as if her whole being were petrifying, thrusting down roots that held her pinned and helpless.

  A thin, white hand with long nails that shone like pearl came to rest on her shoulder, and the demon gazed down. Around them the Brabazons continued their crazed, silent dance. Indigo knew that her grip on reality was crumbling: she could no longer distinguish between truth and illusion; she was starting to believe this insanity, and with the breaking down of her defences came despair.

  The demon’s hand slid from her shoulder to the soft hollow of her neck, and it bent its head. Indigo saw the lips part, saw the mouth red, like a wolf’s maw; saw the fangs, twin white daggers poised above her throat.

  The demon is a vampire…. She had guessed it, she had believed it—and her belief was coming home to claim her. But it wasn ‘t the truth!

  Ice gave sudden and violent way to red heat, and Indigo shrieked, flinging up her arms in a fighter’s movement that took the demon unawares. She yelled again, at the top of her voice, screaming defiance and fury both at the vampire and at the monstrous shades of the Brabazons, and then, with speed and energy born of desperation, spun on her heel and charged at the bobbing, dancing circle.

  She heard a thin wail, saw the small, vulnerable figure of Piety bowled over to fall under trampling feet, and in confusion almost made the deadly mistake of halting. Pi was only six; she’d be hurt—

  It isn’t Piety! her mind screamed. And she was through, bursting the linked hands apart and hurling herself clear of the ring. Cries of dismay rose up behind her, and an animal snarl that snatched her back to memory of Grimya and the phantom wolf-pack. She flung a desperate glance over her shoulder, and as she did so the ghostly flamboys went out, plunging the world into darkness. Indigo yelped with renewed shock, then ran blindly, praying that nothing stood in her path. The gruesome shades were coming after her, she could hear their cries—then her foot turned on a root buried under the rotting leaves, she lost her balance, skidded, and sprawled full-length on the ground.

  There was no time to recover her wits; no time to regain the breath that the fall had punched from her. Her feet and hands were already scrabbling, forcing her upright—but suddenly she paused and then froze as she realized that everything around her had fallen utterly silent.

  Like a deer unsure of the hunter Indigo crouched motionless, straining to detect the smallest hint of a disturbance in the acute quiet. Had the phantoms, no longer of use to their creator, dissolved and vanished? Or were they waiting, invisible now that there was no light to betray them, listening as she did for a sound in the dark?

  Cautiously she rose to her feet, giving mute thanks for the fact that the leaves underfoot were wet and therefore less likely to rustle and betray her position. Reaching behind her, she gripped the crossbow, still slung on her back, and carefully brought it round so that she could heft it. A bolt … the Mother alone knew it would be of little use against these horrors, but she wanted and needed the feel of a primed and powerful weapon in her hands. She began to move backwards, feeling each step, staring into the blackness and willing her eyes to penetrate its intensity.

  “Indigo …”

  The voice was a hoarse whisper, and it came from behind her. Indigo swung round, bringing the crossbow up, and saw a white-faced, red-haired figure lurching at her out of the dark. Her mind registered the image of Forth; she shouted in revulsion, slammed a bolt into the bow, wrenched back the string and fired wildly.

  The bolt struck the phantom’s shoulder, and Forth’s image howled with pain, spinning around and clutching his upper arm as he dropped to his knees. For a moment Indigo didn’t comprehend: she’d shot at an illusion, and illusions couldn’t bleed—

  “Oh, no!” Understanding came like a hammerblow. “Forth!”

  She could hear him swearing as she ran to him and threw herself down at his side.

  “Forth, what have I done? I thought you were one of them, one of the phantasms! On, by the Mother, are you badly hurt?”

  The flow of invective ceased on a gagging note, and Forth grated, “My shoulder …”

  The bolt had grazed the point where the shoulder and his left ar
m met, and had torn through the upper layer of flesh. The gash was bloody, but when she bent to examine him Indigo saw that despite its gory appearance it was no more than a minor wound.

  “Oh, Forth.” She pulled out her knife and cut one sleeve from her own shirt, ripping it into a makeshift bandage which she started to bind around his arm. “Forth, I’m so sorry! Here; sit up if you can … be careful; I’ll steady you. There, now.” She knotted the bandage. “It’ll slow the flow of blood at least. I’ve some herbs in my pouch; they may help to ease the pain …”

  Forth met her gaze with blank incomprehension. “What in perdition did you think you were doing!”

  She shook her head. Ludicrously, she wanted to laugh: the sheer relief of having found him, despite the circumstances, was all but overwhelming her. She pushed the laughter down, and said soberly,

  “I thought you were another of the illusions. First there was Esty, and then—”

  “Esty?” Forth made an incautious movement and winced with pain. “You’ve found her?”

  “No. I thought I had, but I was wrong.” Indigo related her story, though playing down her description of the rotting images of the Brabazon family.

  “When you appeared out of the darkness,” she finished, “I was convinced you were one of the phantoms, hunting for me, and I panicked. I didn’t stop to think; I simply fired.”

  Forth nodded, and managed a weak smile. “In your place I reckon I’d have done the same. I’ll just count myself lucky that your aim was wild.” He fell silent then, staring at the wet ground, then suddenly said:

  “It might be true, mightn’t it?” He raised his head again, and his eyes were haunted. “What the phantom told you—for all we know, the others might have fallen prey to the sleeping sickness, and by now they might all be here.”

  He was thinking, she knew, of the sleepwalker they’d encountered on the black moor, and remembering her hideous dissolution. Indigo didn’t know what to say: reassurance would be hollow, for neither of them could give a sure answer to his question.

  “Forth,” she ventured at last, feeling that frankness was the only wise course, “you might be right. We can’t know. But whether or not it’s true, it doesn’t change anything. We still have to find our way to the heart of this world, and we can’t afford to brood on what might or might not have happened to your family. That’s exactly what the demon wants us to do, because it makes us vulnerable to despair, and despair is one of its most powerful weapons.”

  Anger kindled faintly in Forth’s look. “Do you think I don’t know that?”

  “Of course I don’t think it! But knowing something doesn’t necessarily stop you falling prey to it.” She glanced over her shoulder, and shivered. “I found that out for myself a short while ago.”

  Forth acknowledged the point with a placatory gesture, and Indigo stood up. “How does your arm feel now?” she asked him. “Because if you’ve the strength, I think we should be on our way.”

  There was a pause; then, to her surprise, Forth laughed. “On our way,” he repeated with irony. “Ah. Yes. That’s something I haven’t had the chance to tell you yet.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He looked up at her. In the gloom she could see that there was a smile on his face, but it wasn’t matched by his eyes.

  “There isn’t anywhere else to go, Indigo. You see, I’ve combed this place—you’d be surprised how easy it was to do, and the Mother knows I’ve had time enough. There isn’t a way out. No gates, no arches, nothing. It’s a dead end. If there is a heart to this world, a center of the maze if you like, then I don’t know what we’re going to do now, because it seems that we’ve reached it.”

  •CHAPTER•XIV•

  “No,” Indigo said. “It’s impossible. I don’t believe it!”

  Forth watched her as she ran her hands over the featureless surface of the wall. At her insistence they had tramped full circle around the garden’s enclosing boundary, which was considerably smaller than she’d expected, and the result had been precisely as he’d stated. There was no gate, no way out. And, unlike the wall over which Indigo had climbed, these stone blocks were featureless and sheer, devoid of even the smallest foothold.

  At last Indigo stepped back. For a moment she stared at the stone face, then with a furious movement whipped out her knife and stabbed savagely at the wall, venting her frustration.

  “You’ll damage the blade,” Forth told her. “And it won’t do any good. I know; I tried.”

  She threw him an angry look, then sheathed the knife and, arms folded, stood staring at the wall while she got a grip on her boiling emotions. At last, calmer but still with a livid edge in her voice, she said, “This stone’s so smooth, I’d defy a spider to climb it, let alone a human being! There are too many things that don’t make sense.”

  Forth shrugged. “Gates can vanish. Look what happened before. And the wall—”

  Indigo turned quickly to face him. “I’m not talking about the gate and the wall. They’re nothing, not the half of it—I’m talking about one glaringly obvious fact that we’ve both been too stupid even to see before now!”

  Forth stared back at her, his expression blank, and she began to pace, still hugging herself.

  “Think, Forth. Remember what happened to me when I came in here; the scene I described to you. You were in this garden too: you should have been as caught up in that horror as I was—damn it, you couldn’t have missed such a thing! So why didn’t you even see what was happening?”

  “Mother of us all …” Forth was stunned. “That didn’t once occur to me!”

  “Nor to me, until a few moments ago. You were here, I was here. But it seems we occupied different dimensions, though they were both contained in the same physical space.” Indigo stopped and turned full circle, staring challengingly into the dark. “Now we’ve been thrown back together, which suggests that the game has changed again, and this is yet a third dimension. It looks the same as before; but we know how deceptive appearances can be.” She frowned. “Nothing quite like this has happened before, Forth. We’ve seen landscapes alter, but this is different: it’s as if time has been shifted, rather than space.”

  “The game has changed.” Forth repeated her words thoughtfully. “Is that what this is, Indigo? A game?”

  “A game. A play.” Indigo smiled humorlessly. “You should recognise that better than I do, in your profession.” She began to walk again. “Since we entered this world, the demon has been toying with us. We’ve learned a little; we’ve made mistakes, but they’ve taught us some valuable lessons. And so now I think that whoever created this little show has decided to change more than the scenery.” She was thinking as she paced, and her mind was moving swiftly as it groped towards its goal. “I think—no; I believe—that the key we’ve been looking for has been placed in our hands, if only we have the wit to see it.” A pause. “Have you ever lost something, in pitch darkness, and driven yourself near-crazed with searching before discovering it again right under your nose?”

  Forth grunted. “Often.”

  “Then apply that principle now. Look around you. And remember what you said to me about the center of the maze.”

  He understood. “This place?”

  “The demon’s stronghold. Yes. I believe it is.” Indigo turned, and looked up at the black invisible sky. “I believe it!” she repeated, raising her voice to a shout that echoed back from the encircling wall. “Do you hear me? I know where you are!”

  There was a soft, imploding concussion, and a violent sensation of air being displaced. Forth swore, jamming his fingers against his ears as pressure swelled in his head. For one shocking moment all sensation vanished, as if the world had suddenly ceased to exist—and then awareness erupted back.

  And the world had changed.

  They stood in a huge, dim and empty hall, without windows but with many arched doors, all closed, leading from the flagged floor. The thin, blue-grey light that filtered through the chamber had, ag
ain, no visible source; silent shadows were gathered in the corners, and the ceiling was lost in gloom.

  Forth turned slowly, staring at the grim place, and at last found his voice. “Mother of All Life … you were right, Indigo. We’ve found the heart of it!”

  Indigo didn’t answer him; for she didn’t share his conviction. Something about their surroundings wasn’t right. From an oblique angle the pillars and flagstones and doors looked solid enough, but whenever she tried to focus directly on any one spot, the outlines seemed faintly blurred, and lacking in fine detail. They might be close to the center of the maze, she thought; but this wasn’t the exact heart. Not quite …

  “I’ve never seen anything like it.” Forth, unaware of her doubts, had begun to pace across the floor. His initial shock was giving way to awed fascination, which for the moment at least had driven all other thoughts from his mind. “It’s like some great temple that hasn’t been used in centuries. Do you think it could—”

  And he stopped as they both heard a sound from the far side of the chamber.

  Indigo whirled, snatching reflexively at her crossbow. In the shadows of a pillared corner, something moved close to the floor; there was a slithering, then a weak, muffled oath.

  Forth’s eyes widened. “That’s Esty!”

  “Forth, no!” Indigo shouted in alarm as he started to run across the floor. She saw a glint of red hair, then, horribly redolent of the way the earlier phantom had appeared to her from the bushes in the garden, Esty emerged, on hands and knees, from the shadows. She gave a cry of anguished relief as she saw Forth, tried to struggle to her feet, then collapsed.

  “Esty! Es, come on, it’s all right now; it’s all right!” Forth reached out and started to pull her to her feet, but Indigo’s voice cut harshly across his comforting words.

  “I said, no! Get back—stand away from her!”

  Astonished, he jerked his head round, and saw Indigo standing with the loaded crossbow leveled at his sister’s heart.

  “Indigo, what are you doing?” Forth protested. “It’s Esty!”