Louise Cooper - Indigo 06 - Avatar (16 page)

She suspected that she knew the answer to that question, at least in essence. She had read it in Uluye’s eyes just now, seen it in the twitch of her mouth and the unnaturally tense set of her shoulders. Uluye was worried. Worried that some new and unforeseen factor might threaten her plans, undermine her authority and weaken her—and that factor was Indigo herself.

With a grunting effort, Shalune got to her feet and, still in her night robe, shuffled across the floor to the curtained entrance. Cooking smells were beginning to waft upward as the citadel came to life, and the air was already baking as the sun climbed above the trees. What had Uluye sensed in Indigo that she herself had missed? Was there something there, some power, some disruptive force, or was Uluye starting to lose her grip on reality and see
hushu
at every turn? Whatever the truth of it, seeds were being sown, and the harvest threatened to bode ill for someone.

Footfalls sounded on the ledge outside her cave, and Shalune peered round the curtain to see Yima approaching. The girl saw her, stopped and made an obeisance. “Shalune ... my mother told me to bring you the
irro
.”

“Ah, yes; the
irro
.” There was faint irony in Shalune’s voice as she took the herb and weighed it in her hands. There were only a few roots; not much for half a night’s gleaning. “Thank you, Yima.”

Yima paused, then her face flushed deeply and she whispered, “
I
should be thanking
you
. And I do—I do, from the depths of my heart!”

Shalune eyed her shrewdly. “It may not be so easy the next time. But I’ll do what I can. Best go now; your mother will doubtless have tasks for you.”

Yima nodded and hurried away, and Shalune stared after her departing figure. Yima’s visit had served to remind her that there was yet another complication to be considered, and one to which she must give a good deal of thought. She hoped the child wouldn’t make a mistake, let something slip to the wrong ear or be seen at the wrong time. Uluye had already asked one cryptic question, and any arousal of her suspicions could lead to disaster.

Shalune withdrew into the cave once more. Care, she thought; care must be her watchword now. Or, in the light of Uluye’s new preoccupation, her own plans could be in jeopardy....

Over the next two days, Shalune did as Uluye had bidden her. Unaware of what had been mooted, Indigo was surprised and a little irked by the fact that, unless eating or sleeping, she rarely seemed to be out of Shalune’s sight, but she hid her irritation, for she was growing to like Shalune more and more, and believed that her motives sprang only from kindness and an eagerness to further their growing friendship.

If Uluye had expected her subordinate to report back to her quickly, she was disappointed. Shalune saw nothing untoward; there were no more unexpected trances, no lapses of memory, nothing worthy of further investigation; and this only served to reinforce the fat woman’s suspicion that the question of a flaw was a deliberately misleading ploy, and that Uluye was orchestrating something more devious than she had yet guessed.

During the moon’s waning the citadel was customarily quiet; fewer spirits and dark things were abroad at this time and fewer people came to the bluff with offerings and petitions, so that apart from their nightly ritual of patrolling the lakeshore, the priestesses had little to do but tend to their domestic affairs. The hiatus was a relief to Indigo, as it enabled her to immerse herself in mundane matters and put from her mind the horrors she had seen on Ancestors Night and its aftermath. She suffered no more nightmares; but, on the second night following the full-moon ceremony, something occurred that shattered her new-found peace of mind.

The hour was late, and Shalune was preparing to leave Indigo’s quarters after spending a productive evening instructing her in some of the finer points of the Dark Isle tongue. Lifting back the curtain to usher her guest out, Indigo paused as she glimpsed movement on the lake shore below. The sky was stippled with clouds so that the moon’s light filtered down through a faint haze, but two hunched figures were discernible by the water’s edge, making their way from the forest toward the sandy arena at the foot of the ziggurat. At the lakeside the murderess’s corpse still hung on its wooden frame, and Indigo wondered if these stealthy visitors were perhaps relatives of the dead woman, come to take her body away and grant her the small consolation of a decent interment. But then Grimya growled suddenly, and Shalune reached out and gripped Indigo’s arm.

“Come back inside the cave.” She was staring intently down at the arena and her whisper was throatily urgent. “Quickly and quietly.”

“Why?” Indigo was baffled. “Who are they?”

“
Hushu
. Hurry—if they see us it’ll be a bad omen.” Grimya, bristling, had already ducked into the cave, and firmly Shalune propelled Indigo back behind the curtain. As the patterned fabric fell into place Indigo looked at the fat woman and saw that her face was rigid with tension. Sweat had broken out on her forehead and glinted in tiny beads on her upper lip.

“Shalune, why are you so afraid?” she asked. “These
hushu
—what
are
they? Ghosts, spirits?”

Shalune grimaced. “Not spirits. If they were spirits—if they
had
spirits—we’d have nothing to fear.” Her dark gaze shifted toward the curtain. “
Hushu
are dead ones whose souls have also died or been devoured. The Ancestral Lady has cast them out of her realm and so they wander in the forests and feed on the living when they can.”

“Feed on the
living
?” Indigo was horrified. Shalune smiled, though the smile was a pale and humorless shadow of her usual grin. “Oh, yes.
Hushu
hate living people; living people have souls and that’s what
hushu
want above all else. They want to die, because that’s the only way they can be released from their half-existence. But without souls,” she shrugged expressively, “they can’t be truly dead, just as they can’t be truly alive. They must stay forever in limbo, and they know that, and so they take revenge wherever they can on others who are luckier than they were.”

Indigo looked quickly toward the curtain again. “The woman out there. Will they ... feed on her?”

Shalune’s expression grew somber. “No. They don’t eat dead flesh. They have come to welcome her and take her with them.” She met Indigo’s stare, a little reluctantly. “She has no soul now, you see. Her victims ate her soul when they killed her, so she too will become
hushu
.” She shrugged again. “It’s what the Ancestral Lady has decreed.”

Indigo said nothing for a few moments. Then, abruptly, she reached out to the curtain and started to pull it back.

Shalune and Grimya protested together, Grimya whining as she projected a silent warning and Shalune more vociferous. “Indigo! What do you think you’re doing?”

“Douse the lamps.” Indigo’s voice was hard. “I want to see them for myself.”

“It’s dangerous! If they should set eyes on you—”

“They won’t look up here if there’s no light to attract them. Please, Shalune, do as I ask. Douse the lamps.”

Shalune hissed softly between her teeth. She padded across the floor, and there was a soft, sputtering hiss as the two lamps dimmed and went out. Indigo waited until her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, then drew the curtain back far enough to allow her to look out and down over the bluff.

The two
hushu
had reached the wooden frame and were working at it, striving to untie the cords that held the corpse fast. Their movements were stiff and oddly erratic; every so often one or the other would pause and stand motionless for a second or two, as though the decaying brain inside the mummified skull were struggling to recall what should be done next.

Indigo continued to watch them, repelled and yet mesmerized, until, amid a sudden flurry of movement, the last cords parted. The murderess’s body slumped to the ground and at once the
hushu
pounced upon it. Grimya, who had refused to look at the scene for herself but was picking up telepathic images from Indigo, whimpered and shrank farther back into the cave, her tail between her legs. Shalune darted the wolf a darkly sympathetic look and said, “Grimya knows best. She knows we shouldn’t be looking at this thing.”

Indigo ignored her. One
hushu
had taken hold of the woman’s arms, while the other gripped her legs; between them they spread-eagled her on the sand, then crouched over her with an obscene air of eagerness. Indigo couldn’t see clearly, but she thought that one had put its face close to the corpse’s and was blowing into the sagging mouth. At her side, Shalune hissed again and muttered a charm against evil. Then Indigo’s skin crawled as slowly, jerkily, the murderess’s limbs moved of their own accord and she began to sit up. Her head turned, teetering and flopping on the hacked and ruined pillar of its neck, and the two
hushu
capered delightedly as they grabbed the dead woman’s arms and hauled her to her feet. She swayed and staggered like a drunkard between them, but they pulled her this way and that, tugging her, walking her in circles until her limbs had gained some semblance of coordination and she was able to stand unaided. Once she looked toward the lake and raised one arm, the hand clawing as though to reach for the water. At this the
hushu
shook her violently and struck her with sharp, staccato movements until, learning obedience, she turned away reluctantly and at last the three twisted figures moved off toward the forest.

Shalune let out a pent breath and stepped back. She would have relit the lamps, but Indigo, hearing her movements, said: “No. Leave them, Shalune. I can see well enough by moonlight.”

Shalune paused, looking at her uneasily. “You’re sure? Light would be comforting.”

“I’m sure.”

The three shambling undead had reached the trees now and were merging with the darkness. For a minute or so longer, Indigo remained gazing out into the night; then at last she let the curtain fall and turned around.

“That...” Her voice quavered; she collected herself, then began again. “That fate ... is what the Ancestral Lady
decreed
for her?”

Again Shalune gave her little shrug and nodded.

Indigo stared at her. She wanted to release what was in her mind, wanted to throw the words down like a gauntlet and say, “How can you possibly claim that such an obscene and disgusting end is the will of a goddess? What manner of monster is your deity?” But as she looked into Shalune’s eyes, the impulse to challenge her faded. She’d get no answer that made any sense. Like Uluye—like all of them—Shalune accepted the Ancestral Lady’s word as immutable law, and no argument would sway her. Why should it? The priestesses had been carrying out the Ancestral Lady’s will for generation upon generation, and to think that a newcomer could hope to make them question that will was supreme and foolish arrogance. Goddess or demon, whatever the Ancestral Lady might be, they were in her thrall.

Shalune was beginning to feel uneasy under Indigo’s thoughtful but silent scrutiny. There was something in that gaze that she couldn’t interpret and that made her uncomfortable; she felt suddenly that it would be tactful to leave now.

“I should go,” she said. “The hour’s late.”

Indigo’s eyes refocused. Her shoulders sagged a little in a way that might have implied simple relaxation or a sense of defeat. “Of course,” she said evenly. “I’m sorry to have detained you for so long.”

Awkward now, Shalune began to move toward the entrance.

“Shalune ... one question.”

Shalune looked up. “Ask.”

“You must know that I’ve been unable to remember anything that’s taken place during my trances. Was that true of your former oracle, too?”

Shalune hesitated. This was the one factor that made her doubt her own skepticism about Uluye and her machinations. She wished that Indigo hadn’t asked the question, but she felt obliged to be honest with her—and, she reflected wryly, with herself. “Well ... no,” she said. “She always remembered every detail.” Her lips twitched in a quick, pallid smile. “As did all the oracles who have gone before. You’re a conundrum among us, Indigo. But I wouldn’t let it trouble you. After all, it isn’t for us to question the Ancestral Lady’s ways.”

Indigo watched Shalune walk away toward her own quarters on a lower level of the cave system, then let the curtain fall and crossed the floor to sit down in a chair. She didn’t speak, but Grimya could sense turmoil in her mind. At last, troubled by the continuing silence, the she-wolf spoke.

“Indigo, what are you thinking? What is it that trroubles you?”

Indigo raised her head like one emerging from a dream. A little diffidently, Grimya approached and pushed her muzzle against Indigo’s hand. “Tell me,” she cajoled.

Indigo let out a slow breath. “I don’t know, Grimya. Maybe it’s not important, but ... I can’t understand why I’m unable to remember any detail of my trances. You heard what Shalune said: every previous oracle recalled her experiences perfectly. But I’m different. I remember nothing.” She hunched her shoulders. “It makes me feel that something’s using me without my knowledge, let alone my consent, and I don’t like that; it’s threatening, and I don’t like being threatened.”

Grimya showed her teeth. “I don’t think that Uluye likes it, either. When we saw her on the lakeshore the other morning, I sensed that she is afraid of you.”

“I know; I felt it too. But it isn’t really me she fears, Grimya. It’s the link that I form—or that she believes I form—with the Ancestral Lady. That’s what really frightens her.”

She rose and moved to a shelf above the hearth. Whilst to see the oracle eating was taboo among the women, to drink with her was not, and Shalune’s contribution to the evening had been a pitcher of mildly alcoholic fermented fruit juice. There was still a little left; Indigo poured it into her cup and took a sip.

“That morning, by the lake,” she said, “I accused Uluye of using me as a means to dupe her people into accepting anything she saw fit to tell them. I also wondered if she’d somehow engineered my forgetfulness; it wouldn’t have surprised me if she’d had the power to do it. But I was wrong. I saw that from her reaction.”