Nocturne

by Louise Cooper

  •CHAPTER•XVI•

  Esty said, in an undertone: “She’s crying.”

  “I know.” Forth didn’t want to look across the short stretch of turf to where Indigo sat with her back to them. He’d seen the quivering of her shoulders, though she was trying to hide it, and was both embarrassed and disconcerted. This wasn’t like the Indigo he’d thought he knew so well, and he didn’t know how best to react.

  “Forth, one of us has got to talk to her,” Esty persisted. “After what happened in the hall, what we saw—”

  “Damn it, I know that!” He kept his voice to a furious whisper, then saw his sister’s face distort. “For the Goddess’s sake, don’t you start too! One’s bad enough!”

  “I’m not crying,” Esty retorted fiercely. “I’m just worried. Worried sick, if you really want to know. She’s hardly said a word all the time we’ve been walking, and now, when we stop for a rest, she behaves as if we weren’t here.” Her green eyes focused on Indigo’s back once more. “I think she must know what happened to her, and that we witnessed it; and now she doesn’t know what to do. We’ve got to reassure her; but at the same time we’ve got to find out what’s going on.”

  Forth shifted uncomfortably. “Well, then, you ask her, seeing as you’re so keen.”

  “No. I think it should be you. And you know why.”

  He flashed her a quick, resentful glance. “Don’t be stupid! You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, yes I do. You’re just too embarrassed to admit it.” Esty paused, eyeing him shrewdly. “If I was in love with someone, and I saw they were in distress, I wouldn’t sit on my rump like a dumb ox and do nothing.”

  Forth opened his mouth to retort, but then closed it again. In truth, he couldn’t gainsay his sister: but his reluctance stemmed from the fact that he felt hopelessly out of his depth. During the long walk, which had led them through the fells without, as yet, any sign of an end ahead, he and Esty had been too intent on watching for any sign of danger to have much opportunity for talking. But the occasional exchanged glance had been enough to tell them both that their thoughts were dwelling on the same subject; and now they knew that it couldn’t be avoided for much longer.

  In the decayed hall, when the demon had conjured the black cloud of illusions to bear down on them, Indigo had changed. The transformations had been swift, brief and too shocking for them to take in more than the barest impression, but they had both recognised the silver-eyed child who had stepped through the final door to mockingly greet them, and the strange and unnervingly beautiful being with the milky golden eyes. Both of those creatures, they recalled, had named Indigo sister, and the recollection chilled them. But, last and worst of all, there had been a third metamorphosis: for one horrifying moment, as the black cloud boiled towards them, Indigo had become a wolf.

  It might have been the demon’s work, a further trick to disconcert them; but somehow neither Forth nor Esty believed that. The truth lay elsewhere, and its implications, which as yet were beyond their understanding, unnerved them. Forth’s own feelings for Indigo complicated the matter still further, and now as she saw his discomfiture Esty understood why he was so reluctant to face Indigo and broach their worries.

  She sat back on her heels, and sighed contritely. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t very tactful of me.”

  Forth shredded a stem of grass. “You’re right, though. Someone should talk to her, and it should be me.”

  “If you love her, yes.” A pause. “Do you?”

  He shrugged awkwardly and his face reddened. “That’s not the point, is it?” Quickly, before she could see his expression, he got to his feet. “All right. I’ll talk to her.”

  Esty watched as, trying to appear careless, Forth strolled towards the spot where Indigo sat. She felt sorry for her brother, for despite the fact that he was two years her senior, she knew that he was more naive, and therefore more vulnerable, when it came to affairs of the heart. Esty might be equally inexperienced, but a firm core of pragmatism—hard-heartedness, her sisters teased—lay beneath her romantic inclinations, and she’d vowed long ago that she would never do anything so foolish or painful as to pursue a hopeless love. Forth, though, had no such inbuilt defense, and Indigo was the first woman for whom he had felt more than a passing fancy. Rationally, he knew that his hopes were futile; Indigo loved another, and even if that love was forever lost to her, she didn’t return Forth’s feelings and never would. But Forth still dreamed, and there was no place for rationality in dreaming.

  Forth had now sat down beside Indigo, and they were talking. Esty sighed sadly and turned her back to them, looking away across the dark fells. She couldn’t hear what was being said, and didn’t want to eavesdrop; better to keep her own counsel and let Forth resolve this as he saw fit. She tried to find some point of interest among the hills’ black folds, but there was nothing; not even the occasional outcrop scoured by the elements into some fantastic shape, as there might have been in the true world. Not a sheep, not a hare, not a bird. The land was utterly quiet and empty, and in the wake of the demon’s mocking warning about the dangers of the road, Esty mistrusted the emptiness. It was, she thought, a little too reminiscent of the calm before the storm.

  A sound behind her made her start, and she looked quickly round to see Forth walking back towards her—with Indigo a few paces behind him.

  “Esty.” Forth dropped to a crouch beside his sister. His eyes, she noted with surprise, were alight with suppressed excitement, and Esty stole a glance at Indigo. Her expression was more solemn, but the same eager flicker showed for a moment as their gazes met.

  “I told her.” Forth didn’t trouble with any preamble. “I told her what we saw back there in the hall, and—well, I’d best let Indigo speak for herself.”

  “I didn’t know.” Indigo sat down on the grass. The tears were gone now, though her eyes had a telltale trace of red at their corners. “I remember being suddenly disorientated—it happened several times, as though for a moment I was seeing through someone else’s eyes. But the transformations … I wasn’t aware of them; I had no idea!”

  Forth couldn’t contain his excitement. “Esty, don’t you see what this means? It wasn’t the demon’s doing, it was Indigo’s—even though she didn’t know it at the time, she willed the changes to happen! If she can do that—if she can even cause us to see her in another form—then think what that says about this world, and how we might manipulate it!”

  Esty’s eyes widened as she began to comprehend more fully. “Your hand!” she said to Indigo. “The burn that healed. And the music—the way you willed the pipe and the harp to work—”

  “And so much else!” Forth interrupted. “We’ve always suspected that it was possible to influence things here, if only we could will it in the right way. But this—” He shook his head in wonderment. “I believe we could do anything! Create artefacts, creatures, even people!”

  “Create illusions,” Indigo corrected him. “Don’t forget that, Forth. We can’t summon Chari or your father, even though we might call up their images. But,” she continued, addressing Esty now, “in this world, everything is an illusion. So, can a phantom sword kill a phantom attacker? I think it can.”

  “And phantom fire can burn if we want it to, and an illusory horse can be ridden!” Forth put in. “All we have to do is make it happen!”

  Esty stared from one to the other. The excitement was infecting her, too; but at the core of her mind was a small, nagging worry. It was an insignificant thing, but it troubled her, and she felt she must voice it.

  “I understand what you’re telling me,” she said, and saw Forth frown at the cautious note in her voice, “but … Indigo, when the demon first appeared to us, it took two forms. That awful child with the silver eyes, and the other figure, like a tree spirit. And when you were transformed, you took those same shapes. What are they?”

  Before Indigo could answer, Forth cut in. “Isn’t it obvious, Esty? The demon drew th
ose images from Indigo’s mind—they’re something from Southern Isles legend, probably, but that doesn’t matter; what they are isn’t important. It simply found them and used them. That made Indigo remember them, and so when she willed herself to change, she was unconsciously trying to throw the demon’s own trick back in its face.”

  It made sense. Esty nodded slowly. “And the wolf,” she said. “Grimya; of course.” She looked sympathetically at Indigo. “You were thinking of poor Grimya.”

  Indigo stared down at the ground between her crossed ankles, and said nothing.

  “It even tried to mock her, by giving itself her face,” Forth went on. “Thinking it could throw her off balance by showing her her own self but dressed as something she isn’t—ach, it’s pathetic!”

  Indigo looked up. “Don’t underestimate the demon, Forth,” she said quietly. “It may have failed to thwart us thus far, and it may have inadvertently shown us the way to a vital weapon. But the play isn’t done yet.”

  “True.” Forth smiled at her. “But we know who the heroes are, don’t we? And the heroes always win. That’s the first rule of the Brabazon Fairplayers’ repertoire.” He looked up at the blank, pewter darkness of the sky, and raised his voice to a shout. “Do you hear me? The heroes always win!”

  They made ready to move on. As burdens were shouldered, Esty moved quietly to Indigo’s side and, softly so that Forth wouldn’t overhear, said,

  “Indigo … why were you crying? Was it for Grimya?”

  Indigo looked at her, at the innocent but genuine concern in her green eyes. There was so much that Esty and Forth didn’t know; so much she had kept hidden from them because to reveal it would try their credibility and therefore alienate them. In truth, she had wept because in reminding her of both Nemesis and the Earth Mother’s emissary, and in showing her herself as she had once been, the demon had held up a mirror that reflected a dreadful truth. Little wonder that, in a moment of crisis, those images had surged again from her mind and transformed her in her friends’ eyes. And little wonder that, subconsciously struggling to escape from what they represented, she had sought refuge, as she had done before, in the form of a wolf.

  Esty and Forth knew nothing of that: nothing of the deep-buried and unpredictable natural talent, unwittingly uncovered by Grimya one night many years ago, that allowed Indigo to shift both her physical form and her consciousness into those of a she-wolf. A long time had passed since she had needed to call on that power; yet she’d always known it was there, dormant but waiting, and the demon’s games had finally brought it howling from her unconscious to reality.

  She couldn’t explain to her friends. She couldn’t tell them of the crowding, ugly emotions, or of the true meaning behind the game the demon had played with her. They wouldn’t understand; and it would be a gross injustice to ask such understanding of them. Better that she should leave them to draw their own conclusions, and that their innocence, which she so envied, should remain unsullied.

  “Yes,” she said at last, in response to Esty’s question. “I was crying for Grimya.”

  The thought had been in all their minds for some time, but it was Forth who eventually broke the silence to voice it. They had walked some Considerable way since their rest, each preoccupied, each aware, as Esty had been earlier, that their journey had so far proved suspiciously uneventful in the light of the demon’s warning. And the quiet and the seeming lack of danger had led them, separately but by parallel routes, to the conclusion that their peril lay not here in the empty fells, but ahead of them, at the road’s end.

  When Forth spoke their names, both Indigo and Esty looked up, surprised out of their private reveries by the unexpected call. Forth said:

  “You do know, don’t you, that if this road really is the same as in the real world, Bruhome’s less than a quarter of a mile ahead of us?”

  Esty slowed her steps, her face tensing. “Are you sure?”

  “Certain.” Forth nodded towards a rock buttress that intruded on to the road ahead, forcing it to curve out to avoid the obstruction. “That’s the Ram’s Nose. Once we round the edge of it, the river bridge is dead ahead.” He paused. “Does anyone want to make a guess as to what we might find?”

  Esty looked away from the buttress with a shiver, and Indigo said, “I’d take a wager on trouble.”

  “So would I.” Forth scanned the fells quickly. “It’s been far too quiet for comfort, hasn’t it? I keep asking myself, what’s being stored up for us? It doesn’t make for pleasant thoughts.”

  “Doubtless that’s what the demon intends,” Indigo said. “The longer we’re left to anticipate some new evil, the more nervous we’ll become.”

  Esty spoke up. “I don’t think anything will happen to us until we reach Bruhome, or where Bruhome should be. But I keep asking myself, what are we going to find when we get there? And I’m not sure that I want to know the answer.”

  Indigo gave her a sympathetic look. “I know how you feel. But we can’t turn back now.”

  “Oh, I know that. I’d just wish to be … better prepared, maybe.” Esty clasped her hands together and swung them from side to side, as though wielding an imaginary club. “Mam used to have that old blackthorn stave, d’you remember, Forth? She always said that breaking heads was better than stabbing innards if it came to a fight. I wish I had that stave now.”

  “You could create it,” Forth told her.

  “No, I can’t. I’ve been trying, but nothing has happened.” Esty smiled ruefully. “Knowing it can be done’s one thing; but actually doing it’s quite another, it seems.”

  Forth exchanged a look with Indigo, and the glance was enough to tell them both that Esty wasn’t alone in her failure. There seemed no point, Indigo thought, in asking Forth what he’d tried to conjure from this world of illusions, and no point in cataloguing her own futile efForts.

  She said gently, “Perhaps we’re all trying too hard—too consciously.” Her shoulders hunched slightly. “I suspect that it might need more than a simple wish.”

  “The goad of fear?” Forth suggested.

  “That, or pain, or something similar. At least until we’ve learned a little more than we know now. It’s the difference, isn’t it, between wanting and willing.”

  Forth, she thought, understood; though Esty was dubious. “I can’t see that there is any difference,” the red-haired girl said. “If you want something to happen, you want it to happen and that’s all there is to it. No; I think it’s me.” She held up her hand, displaying it. “After all, Indigo, your burn healed; mine’s still …” And her voice tailed off.

  Forth stared at her unblemished fingers. “When did you do that?”

  “I … I didn’t …” Esty looked up at them, her eyes wide. “But—”

  “But you did.” Indigo cut in. “Tell me, Esty: while we’ve been walking, were you aware of your hand hurting you?”

  “Yes. It was sore, the way burns are while they’re healing, and it was nagging at me—”

  “And you wanted to be rid of it?”

  Esty nodded.

  “The goad of pain,” Forth said softly.

  Esty started to protest, “But I didn’t try—”

  “No. But you willed,” Indigo said. “That’s what makes the difference between success and failure. Forth’s right; it takes a goad.”

  Forth looked over his shoulder at the Ram’s Nose, and at the road curving round it to their unknown destination. “We might have goad enough when we turn that point and find out what’s in store for us.”

  “Don’t say that,” Esty protested quickly. “If I know I might have to do it again, I’ll never be able to!”

  “Well, there’s no point in anticipating a fall before it happens.” As she spoke Indigo unslung her harp, looking speculatively at the road ahead. “Let’s strike up some music to take us into Bruhome. We’re part of the Brabazon Fairplayers, after all—and we’ll show the demon what we think of its attempts to intimidate us.”

 
; Privately, she doubted if the demon, or anything else that might be lurking in wait for them, would be swayed by a show of bravado; but it was a calculated attempt to steer them all towards a bolder and more positive mood, and Indigo was relieved to see Esty’s eyes, in particular, light with fervor.

  “The Spavined Old Mare,” Esty declared. “And I’ll dance it!”

  Forth grinned. “Da’s favorite.” Then his expression changed and he looked uneasily at Indigo. “Do you think … Da and Chari—if there is an illusion of Bruhome ahead of us, do you think they might be there?”

  “If they are, then they’ll hear us arriving!” Esty said eagerly. “Come on, Forth! Play!”

  Indigo held Forth’s gaze, knowing that he was remembering the sleepwalker. She, too, dreaded what they might find, but if there was to be such a discovery it couldn’t be put off for ever. She shook her head faintly, warning him to say nothing to Esty, and at last he lifted his shoulders in a small shrug.

  “Right, then.” He took out his pipe. “Ready when you are.”

  Esty skipped three or four paces down the road and began to clap her hands in a marching, dancing rhythm. Indigo’s fingers poised above the harp and she let the tune, with its skittering hop to imitate the mare’s spavin-legged walk, form in her mind. A stop and a stutter, and one, two, three on the downbeat and—

  Harp and pipe burst into life together, and Esty uttered a yelp of triumph as she sprang light-footed into the air, came down on her heels and launched into the lurchingly comic dance. Spinning and jumping with the music that rang out across the fells like a vivid challenge, she skipped on towards the edge of the buttress now looming before them. She looked, Indigo thought in a sudden flight of fancy, like a moorland sprite conjured from legend, and it would be easy to imagine an entire host of mythical celebrants swarming about her and dancing in her wake—