“How do you know that?”
Forth’s expression changed to one of horror. He’d forgotten Indigo’s own experience, and the color leached from his face.
“Blind my eyes … you don’t think …” He released Esty as though she were a poisonous snake, and backed away.
“Forth!” Esty wailed. “Indigo! What’s the matter with you? I don’t understand—Forth, she’s going to kill me!”
“I’m not going to fire,” Indigo said evenly, “unless you give me reason. Come towards me. Come here.”
Confused and terrified, Esty looked in appeal to her brother. “Forth—”
“Do what she says, Esty.” Forth’s eyes were mistrustful. “If you are what you seem, she won’t hurt you.”
“But—”
“Don’t argue. Just do it.”
Shaking, Esty began to walk very slowly towards Indigo. As she approached, Indigo lowered the bow—if this was a phantom, it would be of no use anyway—and unsheathed her knife. When the shivering girl stopped in front of her, she said,
“Hold out your hand. The hand that was scorched.”
Esty obeyed. The blisters were still visible, surrounded by puckered skin. But it wasn’t sufficient evidence, and before Esty could protest or pull away, Indigo dropped the crossbow and caught her wrist in a tight grip.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but there’s no other way to be sure.” And she pressed the tip of the knife against the girl’s thumb.
Esty yowled like a scalded cat, more from anger than from pain, and leaped back, wrenching her hand free. She stared uncomprehendingly at the vivid bead of blood that appeared on her thumb, then her head came up and her eyes blazed with fury.
“You—you bitch!”
“Esty!” Forth intervened as she lunged forward at Indigo, nails raking at her face. Esty cursed and tried to throw him off, but he pinned her arms back, shouting, “She had to do it! We thought you were an illusion—it’s happened before!”
Esty’s face froze and she stopped fighting. “You thought I was an illusion?” Her expression began to crumple. “Oh, that’s funny! After all I’ve been through, that’s such a sick, horrible joke!” And she burst into tears.
“I’m sorry,” Indigo said with genuine contrition. She tried to touch the girl, but Esty shrank quickly away, turning to Forth for comfort. Over her bowed head Forth glanced at Indigo and raised helpless eyebrows, and Indigo moved back, feeling shamed and guilty and wondering how she would ever convince Esty that she hadn’t wanted to hurt or frighten her. She didn’t know what manner of ordeals the girl had already undergone, but her own experiences allowed her to make an informed guess. Yet there’d been no other way to be sure. She’d had to put Esty to the test.
Perhaps, she thought, there would be a chance to redeem herself later. For the moment, the wisest thing she could do would be to leave Forth alone with his sister. She began to pace across the hall, staring up towards the shrouded ceiling and trying not to listen to Esty’s gulping, halting whispers as Forth coaxed her to tell her story. Amid the furor of the last few minutes, the implications of their arrival in this bizarre hall had flown from her mind; now though, she began to consider them afresh, and to consider, too, what might lie at the root of her immediate suspicion that this was not quite the heart of their journey.
The doors. She stopped, and looked at the nearest of them. Apart from the fact that its outlines still refused to swim into perfect focus, it looked ordinary enough, the peak of the arch just level with the top of her own head. How many were there? She started to number them; lost count, tried again, failed a second time. That peculiar visual shift … it was as though the doors were slyly refusing to be counted: she thought there were twelve, or thirteen, or perhaps even fourteen, but she couldn’t be certain.
Esty and Forth were still talking, though Esty seemed to have stopped crying now, and was calmer. Indigo watched them surreptitiously for a moment, then turned to the door once more. It had a simple latch, and she reached out, wondering if she could touch it or if it would prove ephemeral. Her fingers closed round chilly metal: she hesitated a bare moment, then lifted the latch and, cautiously, pushed.
The door swung open. Beyond it, a black garden overgrown with mouldering shrubbery met her gaze. Leaves moved sluggishly; and somewhere she thought she could hear water dripping …
Indigo closed the door once more and stood thoughtfully gazing at it for a few moments. The third garden. She cast another quick glance at Forth and Esty, saw they were oblivious to her, and moved on to the next door.
Again, the latch lifted easily. This time, Indigo found herself gazing out on a dense and impenetrable forest of black, unnervingly still trees …
She moved on. And from the third door, she saw the moor, bleak, barren, the far horizon etched by a thin line of silver, as though an unnatural moon were about to rise.
Nightscapes of this spectral world, echoes of their own experiences … this hall could indeed be compared to the center of a web, from which all avenues radiated outwards. But would these scenes hidden behind their doors all be drawn from experiences of the past, or would some hold visions yet to come?
Indigo walked towards the fourth door. It opened, like the others, on soundless hinges. And beyond the threshold, in darkness so intense that it was almost physical, a vast, dim and shapeless bulk moved.
Indigo’s heart lurched and she wrenched the door shut, turning away and taking a deep breath to calm herself. She’d seen nothing clearly, but her imagination had fired into life, and images of the Brown Walker and countless other, unnameable horrors surged in her mind. Sternly she told herself that, as with everything else here, they were harmless images, reflections, and reached out, determined to conquer her fear and open the door again. But before she could touch the latch for the second time, a voice spoke behind her.
“Indigo …”
Every nerve was pitched taut, and Indigo started violently. “Forth! By the Mother, you startled me!”
Forth smiled a pallid apology. “Esty has something to say to you.”
Esty was standing a few feet behind him, Indigo saw now. She wore a hunted, embarrassed expression, and she was twisting her hands together. Indigo moved towards her, and suddenly the girl flushed crimson, and said in a rush,
“Indigo, I’m sorry! If it hadn’t been for me, none of this would have happened, and we wouldn’t have been separated in the first place, and Forth’s told me everything and I understand why you had to test me, and, oh, damn it!” Her fists clenched. “I’ve never been able to apologize properly!”
“Neither have I.” Indigo smiled at her, feeling a calming and deeply welcome wash of relief. “But I’m sorry, too, Esty.” She took the girl’s hand, felt the answering squeeze. “Friends?”
Esty nodded. “The trouble was,” she said wryly, “It all seemed so real. And then when everything went wrong, and I came back to my senses … well, Forth’ll tell you about that. I don’t think I could say it all a second time; it makes me feel such a fool.”
Indigo glanced at Forth, and saw confirmation of her surmise in his face. “I don’t think either of you need explain anything,” she told Esty. “The image of you that was sent to dupe me was a very thorough simulacrum—it even told the truth.”
“It was uncanny,” Forth put in. “The same story that you said the false Esty told you, in almost the same words.”
Indigo nodded. “I’m beginning to suspect that our demon friend has a sense of humor, albeit warped.” She turned, and gestured towards the wall. “And I think that now we may have another example of its jests to contend with. I’ve seen for myself what lies beyond some of those doors, and I believe it’s playing a new game.”
Forth and Esty listened with increasing interest as she described the scenes that the doors had revealed. They opened the first two doors again, staring through at the dank, decaying garden and the still forest, and as Forth closed the second door, Esty said, “What of the others? How m
any are there?”
“I’m not sure,” Indigo admitted. “I tried to count them, but each time I failed.”
“And each one appears to lead into a different part of this dimension.” Forth looked about him, surveying the entire hall. “What would happen, I wonder, if we tried to go through one of them?”
Indigo laughed drily. “I haven’t put that to the test.”
“No. No; that wouldn’t be wise, would it? At least, not until we know what lies behind each one.”
Esty was moving towards another of the doors, one that Indigo hadn’t yet explored, and Indigo called after her. “Be careful, Esty! I don’t think they’re all as innocent as they might seem.”
Esty hesitated, looking back at them. “We won’t know that unless we try, will we?” Then her eyes widened eagerly. “What if—what if Da and Chari are behind one of them?”
Or Grimya, Indigo thought involuntarily, and the thought was followed by a pang of anguish. So much had happened since that dreadful encounter with the wolf-pack that she’d barely given Grimya a thought. But might she be there, she and her ghostly followers, beyond one of the doors? Spellbound, and waiting, and hungry?
She said nothing as Esty pulled open the next door, but when the girl gave a sharp cry of shock, her heart missed painfully and the hairs rose at her nape. Esty, though, was staring through the door in stunned fascination rather than fear, and at last Indigo ventured to look for herself.
There were no wolves, nor the Brown Walker or the Jachanine, nor any shapeless monstrosity shambling in darkness. Instead, the scene beyond the door fell away into a thousand miles of nothing, under a sky ablaze with cold stars. At a mind-numbing distance below, an ominous landscape turned slowly like a titanic wheel under veils of cloud, lit for brief, explosive instants by lightning that forked silently and ferociously across its seared hills.
Vertigo assailed Indigo’s stomach and her sense of balance together, and Forth called urgently, “Esty! Shut it again, for all our sakes!” The door slammed, the dizzying vista vanished, and Esty shuddered.
“Ugh!” She shook her head as though to clear it. “One step through that door, and …” She made a sharply expressive downward motion with one hand.
Indigo said somberly, “We have a conundrum. There’s clearly nothing to be gained by staying here—but which exit should we take?”
Forth shrugged, scanning the chamber again. “There’s only one way to decide, surely? We’ll have to open every single door and seen what lies beyond. Until we’ve done that, I don’t see how we can make a decision.”
He was right, and she pushed down her irrational unwillingness to agree. “Very well. Let’s start with the one after Esty’s, and work our way round.”
They began to move round the hall’s perimeter, opening one door after another. Some of the sights that greeted them behind each portal were reflections of scenes they’d already seen in the demon world: the moor, the crags above the river, the deserted gardens; but others were chilling, sometimes horrifying. One gave on to a forest; not the still and silent forest that they had seen before, but a black, lush, wild place of huge, shivering leaves, snaking tendrils and stabbing thorns, bristling with a feral and primeval life of its own. From its furiously agitating depths came appalling sounds, as though a thousand misshapen beasts were fighting to the death among the trees. Another door opened to reveal swirling, choking mists, and a ghastly singing sound, as of a dismal choir. Yet enother swung back, and they were confronted with nothing—a void so complete that they stepped quickly back with a sick feeling of shock, and shut the portal without more than a moment’s glance. And a fourth showed them a breathtakingly beautiful landscape, woods and hills and streams under a mellow sun, yet redolent with an aura of complete and implacable evil.
The search went on and on, scene after scene, each one diiferent yet none offering them any clue or any hope—until, as Indigo was about to lift the latch of yet another door, Forth spoke up.
“Wait a moment. How many have we opened?”
“Fifteen,” Esty said immediately. “I’ve been counting.”
Indigo frowned. “I’ve tallied, sixteen. Or seventeen … I’m not sure.”
“No; and I make it thirteen, which differs again.” Forth moved back a pace and glared at the rows of doors. “Earlier, you tried to count them and you failed. I think this is another damned game! We might go round for ever, opening door after door and finding a different scene behind each one.”
Indigo and Esty were silent for a few moments. Esty began to count the doors, then gave up the attempt with a frustrated shake of her head. “I think Forth’s right, Indigo. We could continue like this until our heads are spinning. So,” she looked quizzically at her brother. “What are we to do?”
“I’ve an idea,” Forth said, “though I don’t know if it’ll achieve anything worthwhile. Open all the doors again, and leave them open. See what that reveals. If something is playing games with us, that might force it into a new move.”
Indigo nodded. “It’s worth trying.” She walked towards the nearest door, lifted the latch, flung it open. Taking their cue from her, Forth and Esty began to move from portal to portal. As the doors were opened, a cacophony of clashing sounds began to fill the hall; the grisly choir singing, the monstrous beasts quarreling in the primeval forest, sighs, moans, the distant, echoing shrieks of a gale. Indigo’s jaw clenched tight as the discordant noises swelled, assaulting her senses; her palms were clammy with sweat and she wanted to scream for the din to stop; but she forced herself to move steadily on, lifting another latch, and another, and another.
And then they had reached the last of the doors—and as Forth pushed it open, all sound instantly ceased.
“What—?” Esty’s startled, truncated question was loud in the sudden silence. Indigo looked at the door they had just opened, and saw that the scene behind it—a flock of birds winging across a stormy night sky—was motionless, as though time had been frozen. Quickly she looked at the other open doors, and saw the same. All sound and movement had been arrested; and suddenly she felt a sense of impending change.
“Look!” Esty’s shrill exclamation made her swing round.
At the far end of the hall, between two of the open doors, a third and larger portal had appeared. Its surface was black, all but petrified with age; and it had no latch, and no visible hinges.
“Ah!” Forth’s eyes lit eagerly. “I thought something like this might happen!” He started towards the door, Indigo and Esty following, and the three stopped before it.
“There’s no means of opening it,” Esty said tensely.
“Push it,” Indigo urged.
Forth reached out. But before he could touch the door, it quivered, and they all jumped back as, moving inwards instead of out, the portal began to open of its own accord. It swung back slowly, revealing darkness beyond, and Forth took a cautious step forward.
“I can’t see anything … I think there’s a chamber there, but—” And his words cut off abruptly as blue-white light flared from the darkness.
Something stood within the light. It had human shape—and as the glare faded it stepped forward, resolving into the figure of a child, barefoot and dressed in a simple tabard, with silver eyes and a nimbus of silver hair crowning its head. It looked at each of them in turn, then its alien gaze fastened on Indigo.
The blood had drained from Indigo’s face, turning it the colour of clay. Bile choked at the back of her throat, and she stared in shock and loathing at the creature before her.
The being smiled, showing sharp, feral cat’s teeth. And Nemesis, Indigo’s deadliest enemy, the child created from the dark pits of her own soul, said:
“Welcome, sister. I have been waiting for you.”
•CHAPTER•XV•
It wasn’t Nemesis’s voice. The figure of the child was the same, and the evil smile, and the cold aura that glimmered around its slender frame—but the voice belonged to another. From the corner of her eye In
digo saw Forth’s and Esty’s stunned faces as they swung round to look at her, but she couldn’t speak to them, couldn’t even attempt to communicate or explain.
And then Nemesis vanished, and another figure stood in its stead. What replaced it caused her companions to start violently, but for Indigo the second shock was far greater than the first, and she gave a choked cry. Dressed in a cloak that shimmered with the colors of spring leaves, its face framed by russet hair, its milky golden eyes filled with sorrow and sternness and subtle strength, the emissary of the Earth Mother Herself, who so many years ago had set Indigo upon her long and lonely road, smiled at her, and spoke.
“Welcome, sister. I have been waiting for you.”
Nemesis’s words—but, as Nemesis had done, the bright being spoke with the voice of another.
Her own voice.
“No,” Indigo whispered hoarsely. “Not you … not you!” She was starting to panic, felt it rising like an unstoppable tidal wave in her head, and backed away, colliding with Forth as he moved to intercept her.
“Indigo, what is it?” he demanded urgently. “What is that creature?”
She shook her head violently, unable to answer him. Then Esty gave a squeal of fright, and they both looked back towards the door.
The emissary had gone. In its place stood a young woman dressed in the formal court attire of the Southern Isles. Gems sparkled on her fingers, a belt of silver links encircled her waist; she wore a silver torque set with agates, and a circlet adorned with the same stones. Her hair, long and unbound, fell in a rich auburn cascade over her shoulders, and her eyes were a vivid blue-violet. Stunned, speechless, Indigo confronted herself—not as she was now, but as she had been in that other, lost life, when she was not Indigo but Anghara, princess of the Southern Isles.
Forth and Esty were rigid, staring at the apparition and not comprehending what they saw. The image smiled, quite gently but with sweet, supercilious malice.
“What, Indigo—do you fear me?” The sound of her own voice emanating from this phantom travesty made Indigo start to quiver, but anger was fast replacing fear as she began to understand. The image laughed.
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