Nocturne

by Louise Cooper

  “Yes. This time, it worked.” Another shiver racked her, but she had to say what was in her mind. “Next time, though, we may not be so fortunate.”

  For perhaps half a minute no one said any more. Then, without warning, so that Esty started like a nervous animal, Forth stood up.

  “Well,” he said, and in the muffling darkness his voice sounded oddly remote. “One thing’s for sure: we’ve broken through into the forest, but there’s nothing to be gained from staying where we are.” He looked down at Indigo, and despite his effort at leadership she sensed his uncertainty and the still lurking fear. “Do you have any idea which way we should go?”

  The question, Indigo thought, might have made her laugh under other circumstances. The darkness was so acute that even with their eyes adjusted to the perpetual night she doubted if they could see any obstacle more than a handsbreadth away. The sleepwalker on whose heels they had been catapulted into this eerie world was gone; oblivious to the dreadful cacophony that had assailed them, or even in some bizarre way commanded by it, he had vanished into the forest’s depths, and they wouldn’t find him again. They had no clues, no trails to follow, nothing but their wits to guide them.

  She rose to her feet, brushing her clothes down. “Firstly,” she said, “I think we should look to our belongings and see if anything’s been lost. The lantern, for instance—”

  Forth smacked the heel of his hand against his forehead. “Damn my stupidity, the lantern!” He turned, feeling in the surrounding grass with one foot. “I must have dropped it after we came through; I’d forgotten—ah!” Something metallic rattled and he swooped like a hunting hawk. “Here!” He fumbled with the sliding glass side, feeling for the stump of candle within. “It’s still in one piece. Must have gone out when I dropped it.”

  Indigo rummaged in her belt-pouch for flint and tinder. Flint scraped in the blackness; a tiny flame kindled, shifted, and the lantern-candle flared into life, creating a small circle of illumination that brought their faces into sudden, startling relief.

  Forth rose, lifting the lantern high, and the light spilled over their immediate surroundings. As Indigo had surmised, they were on the edge of a dense wood, which seemed to be composed of huge, black-trunked trees rising out of thick undergrowth. The leaf canopy overhead was impenetrable and unnaturally still; there were no small movements of birds or animals, no sounds, nothing to disturb the silence. She looked over her shoulder, and shivered as she saw that no more than two paces behind them was a hedge of thorns more than twice her own height, a forest of dark spears glinting evilly in the lamplight. The fact that one or more of them hadn’t been impaled during the chaos following their arrival was little short of a miracle, and instinctively she drew back, away from the barrier. Whatever else befell them, they couldn’t go that way: which left the wood itself.

  “I wonder how far it extends?” She spoke more to herself than to the others, but Forth looked at her keenly. “The forest? It doesn’t really matter, does it? There’s no other direction we can take.”

  Esty said uneasily, “We don’t know what might be in there. Wild animals could be the least of it.” She fingered the sheathed knife at her belt.

  “Well, we won’t find out unless we look.” Forth, Indigo suspected, was forcing himself to sound more confident than he felt. “Maybe we can find a path or some such.” He raised the lantern higher still and took a cautious step towards the trees, then another—and suddenly Esty grabbed Indigo’s arm.

  “Indigo! The light!”

  As Forth stepped forward, the lantern had abruptly dimmed, its glow losing its yellow warmth and fading to a sickly, colorless glimmer. Forth froze, stared at it in chagrin. Then he took a pace back, and immediately the lantern brightened.

  “Forth, come back!” Esty cried.

  Forth held up his free hand. “No,” he said. “Wait.” Again he moved forward; again the lantern dimmed. He stopped, peered into the wood for a moment, then turned quickly and beckoned to them.

  “Indigo—Esty—come here, quickly!”

  They hastened to join him, and he pointed into the crowding trees. “Look. There’s light. It’s very faint, but I’m sure I’m not imagining it!”

  Indigo narrowed her eyes and saw that he was right. A dim and apparently sourceless greyish glow was filtering among the leaves in the distance.

  “Take another step forward,” Forth said, “and watch what happens.”

  Puzzled, Indigo obeyed him—and the faraway glow grew fractionally brighter. Forth said: “Now watch the lantern,” and moved up to join her. She drew in a sharp breath as the candle immediately dulled to a colorless ember, and suddenly she understood.

  “We’re in some kind of borderland, aren’t we?” Forth’s voice was tense. “Half in one world, half in another. We can’t truly see into this otherworld until we step completely out of our own. And when we do step out … well, it’s what you were saying about reality. Once we leave our world behind it isn’t real any more.”

  “And so artefacts from our world become less real, and lose their strength.” The theory made sense, and Indigo was surprised by Forth’s insight when he had so little knowledge of dimensions beyond the physical plane of Earth. But before she could say anything more, Esty spoke up.

  “Does this mean …” There was a slight tremor in her voice; she looked nervously from one to the other. “Does this mean that … we’re not real, either?”

  Indigo considered this for a moment. She recalled the sleepwalkers, the dying crops, the overwhelming sense that something was feeding upon Bruhome, sucking the life from it like marrow from a bone. Even a demon couldn’t sustain itself on nothing.

  “No,” she said at last to Esty. “We’re still real enough, and so is every living thing that finds its way into this world.”

  But the thought that accompanied her words was far less reassuring. For the demon would surely find them, as it would find the sleepwalkers and their lost companions. And if it fed upon life, then the lives of three souls who had entered its realm of their own volition and by their own will might be a more desirable prospect than most.

  •CHAPTER•VIII•

  They set off into the wood in single file, moving slowly and cautiously. Indigo had unslung her crossbow and nocked a bolt; after the incident with the lantern she doubted whether the weapon would be of any use, but the solid feel of it in her hands was reassuring.

  The dim glow strengthened as they advanced, until it was possible to see their surroundings as though through a heavy, moon-drenched fog. Still the silence was uncanny; the air didn’t stir, and not a single leaf moved among the branches. Forth insisted on leading; Indigo had been reluctant but at last gave way, not wanting to waste energy arguing with him and privately reasoning that she could at least keep a watchful eye on her companions if she walked behind them. Once, she looked over her shoulder, and saw that the thorn hedge had vanished, leaving only the crowding trees that seemed to stretch back into infinity. She wasn’t entirely surprised; the thorns had been a part of the indistinct border between their own world and this, and now that they had penetrated the no-man’s land that straddled the two dimensions, their reality and all it contained was truly lost to them. The thought was discomfiting, for it begged the question of how they would find their way back, and she decided not to draw her companions’ attention to what she’d seen, but to continue on in silence.

  For some while no one spoke; then Esty, who still jinked at every shadow, looked back at Indigo with an apologetic yet hopeful attempt at a smile.

  “It’s silly,” she said, “but I want to sing. Just to hear a voice. Anything.”

  Forth glanced back, his expression scathing, but before he could speak Indigo forestalled him.

  “Why not?” Their progress through the undergrowth was noisy enough to have alerted anything that might be lurking in the vicinity to their presence; a song would make no difference and might help boost all their spirits. “If I could handle my harp and cros
sbow at the same time, I’d accompany you.”

  “Forth’s got his pipe.” Esty gave her brother a wicked look. “I saw him packing it.”

  Forth flushed. “That was in case of need, not—”

  “Need?” Esty laughed, too loudly. “What were you going to do with it, Forth? Though mind, your playing’s probably enough to scare the demons away!”

  Forth stopped and turned, ready to make a furious retort, and Indigo snapped.

  “Esty! Forth! For the Mother’s sake, will you stop quarreling over something so trivial?” Then she drew breath, quelling her anger, and continued more quietly. “If Esty wants to sing, I can see no harm in it; in fact it might cheer all of us. And if you can play while you walk, Forth, so much the better.”

  Forth snorted and turned away, but the reprimand had gone home and he said nothing. Esty, unabashed, started to hum a tune which Indigo recognized as one of the younger children’s chorus-pieces, lively and lilting. After a few bars, gathering courage, she began to sing the words, and Indigo joined in. Their voices sounded strangely toneless; the wood gave back no echoes and the effect was a little disconcerting, but better, Indigo thought, than the oppressive silence. And, as she’d hoped, Forth finally relented, drew his reed-pipe from his pack and put it to his lips.

  “Come on, Forth,” Esty said when no trilling whistle joined in with the song. “We’ve known this one since we could barely toddle! Play the descant.”

  Forth stopped walking and turned to face them. “I am playing the descant,” he said pallidly. “Or at least, I’m trying to.”

  Indigo stared at him. Esty, not yet comprehending, muttered irritably about blocked reeds, but her brother shook his head.

  “There’s nothing wrong with the pipe. Nothing at all.” He held it out, and now anger suffused the unease in his eyes. “Here. See for yourself if you don’t believe me.”

  Esty took the pipe and turned it over in her hands, frowning. When she put it to her lips and blew, there was only the sound of her exhaled breath. She tried again, harder, then looked fearfully from Forth to Indigo.

  “It won’t work …”

  “Like the lantern.” Forth’s voice was grim and he held the lamp up for emphasis. The candle had by this time dimmed to a feeble, bluish pinpoint, no brighter man a glowworm. “And your crossbow, Indigo. What would happen, do you think, if you tried to fire it? Or tried to play your harp?”

  She acknowledged his meaning with a grave nod, but Esty protested angrily. “It doesn’t make any sense! Why won’t the pipe play? If we can still sing, then surely—”

  “Don’t look for sense,” Forth said sourly. “Not here.”

  He was learning fast, Indigo thought. To Esty, she said, “He’s right. The rules of our world don’t apply in this place. We’re going to have to learn the new rules as we go along.”

  “If there are any,” Forth added.

  Indigo glanced obliquely at him. “Oh, I think there will be. But whether or not we’ll be able to recognize them might be another matter.” She looked down at the crossbow still poised in her hands, and decided—irrationally—against shouldering it. “We’d best go on. And if all we can do is sing, well then, let’s sing.”

  “Yes!” Esty agreed fiercely, and swung round, glaring up at the trees. “D’you hear? D’you hear! We’re not afraid of you!”

  Indigo laid a restraining hand on her arm. “No, we’re not. But all the same, I think it would be as well not to issue our challenges too loudly as yet.”

  They continued on their way, but Esty was no longer in a mood to sing, and so the only sound to sully the quiet was the rustling of their progress through the undergrowth. Time in the forest’s unchanging gloom was meaningless, and if hours were passing at all it was impossible to estimate their number; but eventually Indigo began to tire. She hadn’t slept since the few snatched hours after the storm, and knew that the others had fared no better: they, too, must be flagging though neither would be first to admit it. And she was hungry. There was no point in trudging doggedly and endlessly on for the sake of it, and she called out to her companions, suggesting that they should look for a suitable spot to make camp and rest for a while. Esty concurred thankfully, but Forth was dubious.

  “Camp here, among the trees?” he said. “I don’t know… I don’t like the idea. I’d rather be somewhere where there’s some kind of vantage point.”

  “So would I; but we might walk for days without reaching the edge of the forest.” If there was an edge… “We’re all weary, Forth, and we can’t go on indefinitely.” She smiled thinly. “I assure you, I’m as reluctant as you are to stop here, but I don’t see that we have a choice.”

  Forth chewed his lower lip. “Just a little further, then,” he said, ignoring Esty’s groan. “Maybe there’ll be a clearing. We’ve passed one or two already.” Suddenly he grinned at her. In the cold half-light the grin looked ghastly. “Or maybe I’ll change our luck. Da always says I’m the luckiest one of the family.”

  Indigo nodded. “All right; just a little further. But we’ll have to rest soon.”

  Forth turned and walked on. He’d gone no more than ten yards when abruptly he stopped again, holding up a hand to halt the others. Esty hissed in a sharp breath and Indigo whispered, “What is it?”

  “Remember what I said about luck?” There was an odd catch in Forth’s voice. “I think I might have been right. Look—look ahead, maybe another twenty paces.”

  They looked, and Esty said softly. “I don’t believe it…”

  “Then you’re blind to what your eyes are telling you!” Forth broke into a run, forging ahead of them, then stopped once more, signaling with one arm and shouting back, “I was right! Come and look!‘’

  Indigo and Esty hastened after him, and stumbled to a halt at his side. Even in the tricky twilight there could be no mistake—a mere few paces ahead of them, the forest ended. The trees didn’t gradually thin and peter out; they simply stopped, as though some gigantic scythe had swathed a sharp, clean line through the forest. And beyond the last black trunks, dimly visible like a grey and misty ocean, was open ground.

  Esty let out a shriek of delighted relief and hugged her brother, while Indigo looked at Forth with renewed interest, wondering if he realized just how significant his wry joke might have been. Lucky … perhaps he was. Or perhaps, unconsciously, he had exerted an influence over their surroundings, imposing his will over the will of whatever power governed this bizarre land. The thought that such a thing might be possible both excited and disturbed her, and she judged that it might be wiser to say nothing to Forth of her suspicions. Not yet; not until she could test the ground a little further.

  Forth and Esty were running on ahead of her, and by the time she caught up with them they had reached the edge of the trees. Esty, leaning against one of the massive trunks, simply stared mutely at the vista before them, while Forth ventured a pace or two beyond the leaf canopy before halting. His head turned slowly as he surveyed the landscape, and at last he said softly,

  “It’s like the fell country around Bruhome. But …”

  “Dead.” Esty spoke with quiet emphasis. “No color. No life. Nothing.” She shivered and pushed herself away from the tree, hugging her upper arms. “There isn’t even a wind.”

  Indigo gazed at the land that spread away from the forest’s edge like something from an eerie dream. Dark and brooding under the coldly diffused nightglow, it was, as Forth had tried to say, almost a parody of the Bruhome fells. But the slopes were steeper and the scarps more angular, creating deep hollows that fell away into hard-edged shadows black in sharp contrast to the softer, silvered undulations of the hills.

  She shifted her gaze to where, at an unguessable distance that might have been one mile or twenty, the land met the featureless pewter bowl of the sky. The horizon was etched with a thin silver-grey shimmer, like the herald of moonrise, but she knew instinctively that there was no moon here. Overhead the sky was uniform, featureless: there was no s
ign of the source from which the dim light emanated, no stars, no faint shadow of cloud. No color, no life, Esty had said. Not a sign of movement anywhere in the empty land.

  Forth, whose thoughts had been running in a similar direction to her own, said quietly, “At least here we can see anything that might be abroad.”

  “Yes …” Indigo shut her eyes momentarily and shook her head to clear it; the nightscape had an oddly hypnotic effect, and she was glad to refocus her vision on the grass at her feet. Black grass. No colors but black and grey and silver … She pushed uneasy thoughts of the significance of silver from her mind, and set down her crossbow, unslinging the pack she carried on her back. “It’s as good a place as we’re likely to find. The trees for cover if we should need it; but as you say, we’ll see anything that might approach before it sees us.”

  “I don’t think anything will,” Esty said sombrely. “I don’t think there is anything here. Only us.”

  Forth flashed her a sharp look. “And Da, and Chari, and Grimya. And all those others. Don’t ever forget that, Esty. Not for a moment.”

  She glanced up resentfully. “That wasn’t what I meant, and you know it.”

  To Indigo’s relief Forth didn’t press the point; either he’d taken her earlier admonition to heart, or he was too tired to argue. He dumped his burdens on the ground, and looked about him.

  “There’s enough dead leaves and debris to make a fire,” he said. “Do you think it would light? Or will our flints and tinders fail, like the pipe and the lantern?”

  “I don’t know.” Indigo fingered her belt pouch. “It’s worth trying.”

  Forth gathered a double armful of leaves and fallen twigs-leaves did die in this world it seemed—and heaped them on the grass. Then he struck flint and tinder.

  Nothing happened. The flint scraped, overloud in the silence, but there was no answering spark. Forth tried a second and a third time, then sat back on his heels, shaking his head.

  “It won’t work. I was afraid that might happen.”

  “Try again,” Esty urged.