Nocturne

by Louise Cooper

  “Ah!” Shock made her strike a discord, and Forth looked up in alarm, taking the pipe from his lips to call out, “Wha-?”

  “It’s all right! Keep playing!” Indigo snatched back her self-control and bent to the harp again. The glimpse had been fleeting, vanishing in an instant—but for one extraordinary moment she had seen them dancing at Esty’s heels. People, animals, creatures that were part of both, laughing and reveling to the lively melody. For one moment, imagination had become reality …

  Esty was ahead of them now. She had reached the turn in the road, and Indigo and Forth were forced to jog to catch up with her. They, too, rounded the buttress—and almost collided with Esty, who had stopped, rigid, on the track.

  The Spavined Old Mare faltered to a chaotic halt, and all three stared at the scene that lay before them.

  It was, indeed, Bruhome. There was the old stone bridge with its weathered parapets, spanning the river. There was the dust road turning to neat cobbles as it became one with the town’s main street. There were the houses and the shops and the market-stalls, with the distinctively ornate gables of the Brewmaster’s Hall dominating the jumble of rooftops.

  And stillness and silence, like a death pall, holding the scene in a cold grasp.

  “It’s so … still.” Esty was shivering, staring at the image of the town as though transfixed. “There’s no one about, nothing moving …”

  Neither Indigo nor Forth could muster a reply. To see Bruhome—even a false Bruhome—reduced to a shadowed and empty ghost was unnerving enough to Indigo: for the Brabazons, who had known its bright and vibrant bustle since their birth, this vision must be more grotesque than she could ever begin to comprehend.

  There was no question of resuming the music and the dance. Forth was already putting the reed-pipe away, all thought of merriment forgotten. His face was haggard and he seemed mesmerized by the silent town, while Esty had transferred her attention to the ground, scraping at it with one heel and seeming to stare unhappily into another world.

  “We have to go in,” Indigo said at last, softly.

  Forth nodded. “I know. Best get it over with, then.”

  In silence that felt doubly discomforting after the music’s cheerful noise, they walked towards the bridge. The truly unnerving thing, Indigo thought as they began to cross, was that the scene looked so normal. Every familiar detail was there, undistorted; the river’s quiet splash and gurgle, the ruts on the bridge where countless wagons had rolled across, the buildings on the far side. This might have been any peaceful autumnal night in the Bruhome they all knew.

  But for the dreadful sense of utter emptiness …

  They reached the end of the bridge, and stopped as they felt the uneven contours of cobbles under their feet. “Perhaps we should go to the Brewmasters’ Hall,” Forth said uncertainly. “If there’s anyone … or anything … abroad, that’s the most likely place to find some sign of life.”

  Esty gave him a nervous, almost furtive look. “What about the meadow?” she whispered.

  He did his best to turn a shudder into a shrug. “Afterwards, we’ll look.”

  “I’m not sure that I want to.”

  Forth didn’t answer, but started to walk on into the town.

  All the way to the main square, the story was the same. Bruhome was like a ghost town. Everything was neat and well-kept, but devoid of any sign of a living creature. No candles glowed in the windows, no faces peered from behind half-open doors. And when they reached the square itself, they walked into a place of chill and silent desolation. The buildings, some shuttered, others with their windows gaping like blind eyes, stared out across the square’s clean and empty space. No flamboys burned on the tall poles that stood gaunt sentinel. There were no market-stalls, no banners, no makeshift Revels stage. And not even the smallest scrap of litter blowing randomly across the paving.

  “It’s horrible.” Esty still spoke in a whisper, awed and unnerved by the scene. “It’s as if everyone who ever lived here has just been … spirited away.”

  Neither Indigo nor Forth said anything in response, but to Indigo at least Esty’s words went sharply home. Could this, she wondered, be a true reflection of what Bruhome was now? Was that the crux of the demon’s jest on them—that they were too late, and in the real world the town was now drained of life, its inhabitants all snared and gone to feed a new and ever-hungry master?

  No: she mustn’t think it, mustn’t consider it even for a moment. She turned her face from the empty windows of the Brewmasters’ Hall and, pausing only to check that Forth and Esty were following, headed across the square towards the street that led westward to the riverside meadow.

  Their footfalls echoed between the house walls to either side, serving to emphasize the stillness. Esty constantly looked back over her shoulder as though she feared that some shadow might be stalking in their wake, but again there was no untoward movement, no sign of life. And when they reached the lea, and stood by the open gate, they found the meadow deserted, dark and empty under the featureless sky, with only the river flowing smooth and slow and black like a quiet mirror beyond.

  Forth stared at the desolate scene for a few moments. Then he said, “Why is there nothing here? What game could the demon be playing now?”

  “I can only surmise,” Indigo replied quietly, “that whatever it has in store for us isn’t to take place in the meadow.” She glanced at him. In the uneasy twilight he looked tense, and far older than his years. “Perhaps this is too obvious a setting.”

  A chill breath of air blew from the river, and Esty began to shiver. “Let’s go back to the square,” she said. “At least there are houses to shelter in.” A quick, self-deprecating smile. “Even if they’re as unreal as the rest of this place, I’ll feel safer.”

  “The Brewmasters’ Hall might be our best choice,” Forth suggested. “It’s the tallest building in the town, and its balcony would make a useful vantage-point. We can at least camp there while we decide what’s best to do.” He could have added: or while we wait for whatever’s to be sent against us, but thought better of it. Esty and Indigo concurred, and so they retraced their steps to the square. The main door of the Brewmasters’ Hall stood open; beyond the door, the hall and the imposing staircase were sunk in shadow.

  “I wish we still had the lantern.” Esty took care not to look at the carved gargoyles that adorned the building’s frontage as she stepped under the lintel at Forth’s heels. “It’s like walking into a tomb …”

  “Be careful what you say.” Indigo made an attempt at ironic humor, but regretted it when she saw the rapid change in Esty’s expression. She paused on the threshold, allowing her eyes time to adjust to the deeper darkness. “We may be able to create light for ourselves; but let’s wait until we’re settled upstairs before we try.”

  Forth, who was standing at the foot of the stairs and listening intently, let out a breath. “There’s no sound from up there. I think it’s as deserted as everywhere else seems to be.” He set foot on the first step and was about to start the climb when suddenly, from the door, Indigo said sharply,

  “Wait!“

  Esty jinked nervously, and both she and Forth looked back to see Indigo, one hand still on the lintel post, staring out across the square. Everything about her radiated tension—and fear.

  “Indigo?” Forth covered the distance between them in three strides. “What is it?”

  “On the far side of the square.” Her voice was low-pitched, not quite steady. “I thought I saw something move …”

  “Human?”

  “N … no. Not human.”

  They peered across the dark expanse to the farther houses and side-streets, straining to make out anything that might be more substantial than shadows. After a while Forth whispered, “I can’t see anything. Whatever it was, it’s gone.”

  “Perhaps I imagined it.” But Indigo clearly wasn’t convinced. “The gloom plays tricks; it’s easy to—oh, Goddess!”

  The fine hair
s at the nape of Forth’s neck rose, and ice locked his spine as, somewhere beyond the square, from one of the black and narrow alleys that ran between the houses, came the rising, shivering cry of a wolf. And instantaneously, like a hellish chorus, the cry was answered by a choir of eerie, phantasmic howls.

  “No …” Indigo tried to back away, but tangled with Forth, who was in her path. She spun round to face him, and her face was bleached and haggard.

  “That’s what the demon meant!” Appalled revelation burned in her eyes and she clutched at Forth’s arm. “All our friends—that’s the trap it’s set for us, don’t you see? The wolf-pack—Grimya’s still leading them! And they’ve found us again, as she said they would! They mean to tear us apart!”

  She was on the verge of panic, and Forth didn’t fully understand. For a few seconds he stood frozen, staring at her—and then the howling rose anew, and he glimpsed something darker than the twilight forming at a street’s gaping mouth …

  “Upstairs!” Rationality resurged like an ice-cold slap and he pushed Indigo from him, grasping the heavy door and throwing his full weight against it. It grated shut with a terrible noise, and Forth scrabbled to set the heavy bar, desperately telling himself that a phantom door would keep out phantom wolves, and trying not to think of whether it would hold back Grimya. Feet clattered on the staircase as Indigo, regaining some measure of self-control, started up the flight, pulling Esty with her; the bar fell into place—it felt substantial enough, and Forth prayed that that illusion, at least, would hold—and he ran after the two women as they gained the landing above. For a moment all three halted, not knowing which direction to take, and the gloom was filled with a sudden, crawling silence. Shadows crowded in on them from the walls and rafters, tight and stifling. Forth looked down into the well of the hall below, saw the dim outline of the barred door, listened with a pounding heart to the unearthly quiet, then looked again at Indigo’s face. She was dead-white, but self-control had returned, and with it an iron calm.

  “The balcony,” she said in a peculiarly level voice. “I must find the balcony.” A pause, while her knuckles whitened on the rail. “This is the test. I have to face it. There’s no other way.”

  And before Forth or Esty could respond, she swung round and walked away from them, into the darkness of the upper floor.

  •CHAPTER•XVII•

  They came like the insinuating trickle of a river slowly but lethally overflowing its banks; gathering first in the deeper dark and then spreading gradually, cautiously into the square. From where she stood in the tall casement that opened on to the balcony of the Brewmasters’ Hall, Indigo could see the crimson flickering of their eyes, unnatural embers in the night. Behind her, she knew, Forth and Esty were crouched on the floor, frantically concentrating as they tried to conjure the illusion of light, but she gave them barely a thought, and couldn’t help them. Every part of her consciousness was focused on the gathering wolves, and on her agonizing, futile efforts to reach the bewitched mind of Grimya.

  There had been no more howling; nothing that might have enabled her to separate Grimya’s real, physical voice from the eldritch echoes of her phantom pack. The silence was intense and nerve-racking; and as yet she had glimpsed no brindled grey among the black outlines that slunk and lurked between the buildings. But Grimya was there; Indigo knew it with cold certainty. A plaything in the demon’s hands, a toy and a weapon, she was there and she was waiting.

  Movement behind her. Someone approached, soft-footed, across the floor and she heard Esty’s quick, nervous breathing.

  “We can’t do it.” The sky’s dim glow reflected on Esty’s hair like starlight on copper as she eased forward to look out of the window. “We’re not strong enough.” She hesitated. “What are they doing … ?”

  Indigo shook her head slowly. “Nothing, as yet. They seem reluctant to venture into the open. I think …” Her voice caught and she swallowed. “I think that for the moment they’re content simply to intimidate us.”

  Esty looked at the crossbow, which Indigo held loosely in one hand. The weapon was loaded, though the string and trigger hadn’t been set.

  “You’re not going to …”

  “No.” No power would induce her to shoot at Grimya; that was something Indigo had decided long ago. The bow was a crutch to her courage, nothing more.

  Esty fell silent, scanning the square. Then, abruptly, she clutched at Indigo’s arm. “Indigo—what’s that, over there?”

  Indigo’s heart had missed a painful beat at the unexpected touch. “What?” she demanded, more sharply than she’d intended.

  “There.” Esty pointed to a cluster of buildings dn the square’s south-eastern side. “The attic window, at the top of that steep-gabled house—there’s a light!”

  She was right. Faint, unsteady, but unmistakable, a candle was glowing on the house’s topmost floor. And, unlike others around it, it looked as though the window was half open.

  “Forth!” Indigo swung round, her pulse quickening afresh, and beckoned. “Come here, quickly!”

  He joined them at the window, and Esty pointed again across the square. “Look at that.”

  “Goddess blind me …” Forth’s eyes widened, then narrowed to slits. “That’s the Apple Barrel, isn’t it? Look; you can just make out the inn sign over the door.”

  Esty turned to stare at him, stunned, as the same wild thought occurred to them all at the same moment. “You don’t think—”

  “No,” Forth interrupted harshly. “It’s a deception. It must be.”

  “But Da knows the Apple Barrel so well. It would be the first place he’d think of!”

  Forth shook his head, though Indigo saw from his expression that he desperately wanted to be contradicted. “It can’t be them, Esty. It can’t!”

  Indigo said, with quiet tension: “There’s one way to be sure.”

  They both looked at her, hope and fear vying for precedence in their faces.

  “Whistle,” she said. “Call out, in the fellmen’s code. If it’s Stead, he’ll answer.”

  Forth uttered a muted oath. “It’ll carry all right …”

  “Try, Forth!” Esty’s eyes were fervid. “Please!”

  The muscles of Forth’s throat worked convulsively as he stepped out on to the balcony. He didn’t look down, keeping his gaze averted from the silent, shifting forms that lapped on the fringes of the darkness below. “I … don’t know if I can do it. My mouth’s so dry …”

  Esty cursed and ran to fetch a waterskin. “Try!” she pleaded again. “I’d do it myself, but I don’t know the codes!”

  “All right.” He pushed the skin away, put his fingers to his lips, then drew breath, and five clear notes shrilled piercingly across the square.

  Instantly, a howling clamor rose from the streets below them. Esty gasped and shrank back into the room; then, as the wolves’ cries died away, took a grip on herself.

  “Wh-what did you call?” She forced the words out between clamped teeth.

  “I said: family here—answer and identify.” Forth was trying not to show his own discomfiture at the wolves’ eldritch challenge, though sweat had broken out on his forehead.

  “Maybe they didn’t hear. Maybe those—those creatures drowned it out.”

  Forth said nothing. They waited, and Indigo’s hope began to fade. Then, distant but clear, two notes echoed back across the square, repeating once before the wolves’ renewed cries swamped them.

  “Oh, Forth!” Esty clutched the window’s frame, almost dancing with fearful excitement. “What was it?”

  “They said, repeat who.” Forth wetted his lips. “If there was anything else, I didn’t catch it. Curse those monstrosities down there! Wait; I’ll send the same call, and add the code that’ll give our position. If we stand at the balcony rail, perhaps they’ll see us.”

  Esty looked dubious. “We’ll draw the wolves’ attention as well as theirs.”

  “That’s a risk we’ll have to take. Come on.”
He held a hand out to her and, reluctantly, she let herself be drawn out on to the balcony. “Just pray it is Da, and we’re not walking into a trap,”

  Esty bit her lip, and stood close to Indigo as, again, Forth whistled the shrill sequence of notes, adding an extra cadence at the end. Despite the wolves’ clamor, the sound rose clear on the still air, and he repeated the sequence twice for good measure.

  “There’s a shadow at the window!” Indigo pointed suddenly. “Look—it’s opening wider—”

  The faint light had dipped and flickered, as though something had come between it and the casement. The window dimmed as a shape leaned out.

  “I can’t see properly!” Esty wailed. “It’s too dark!”

  Even Indigo’s sharp eyes couldn’t make sense of the silhouette that now all but obscured the faint light from the attic room. But the answering whistle came loud and clear, and Forth’s eyes lit with excitement.

  “It’s Da!” He stretched up, waving his arms wildly. “It is Da!”

  “He can’t see us.” Frustration filled Indigo as she saw that the silhouetted figure wasn’t about to wave in response to Forth’s frantic gesturing. “There’s no light behind us; to him we’re one with the darkness.” She turned to Forth. “Forth, I don’t know why, but I believe that it is Stead and not an illusion. We must let him know what’s afoot. And Chari—” She didn’t need to elaborate; her eyes expressed her thoughts all too eloquently.

  But Forth shook his head. “I can’t,” he said unhappily. “The whistle-code’s too simple; it’s impossible to send such a detailed message.”

  Indigo stared down into the square. So close, and yet so distant … they had to find a way to communicate more directly with Stead. And she could think of only one ploy that stood a chance of success.

  She looked at her companions again, and her face was tense. “Very well,” she said. “Then we—or rather I—must go to the Apple Barrel.”

  For a long moment Forth and Esty stared at her as though she’d lost her mind. At last, in a small, bemused voice, Esty said, “But that’s impossible. You know it is.”