Nocturne

by Louise Cooper

  She hadn’t meant to take on that aspect! It had come unbidden and completely without her willing it—she’d meant only to show Stead an illusion of herself in one of the familiar fairplaying costumes. But something else had come powering through her, swamping her consciousness, turning her, instead, into the image of the Earth Mother’s emissary.

  “I—” But she couldn’t articulate it. How could it have happened? Control snatched out of her hands; she hadn’t wanted that; not that image of all things—

  “Indigo, are you all right?” It was Forth, who’d seen her sway back against the wall and hastened to her side.

  “Y-yes … I … I’m …” With a great effort Indigo took hold of herself. “I’m quite all right.”

  “You startled us all; not just Da.” Forth glanced across the room to where Stead had sat heavily down with Esty beside him. “The image was so real.”

  Indigo took several quick, deep breaths. She didn’t want anyone else to know of the shock she’d had. She just wished she could get away, be alone for a few minutes to recover her wits and her composure.

  She forced down a desire to run from the room and, trying to maintain at least a pretence of normality, said to Forth, “I’m sorry I had to do that. But it was the only way I could think of to convince him.”

  “Oh, he’ll be well enough.” Forth smiled faintly. “Give him a few minutes to get over the surprise, and we’ll explain it all to him. It had to be done, Indigo.”

  “Yes. But now he knows the truth, how will that affect him?”

  Forth grinned “It won’t affect him in the least; not if I know Da. He’s a very practical man. Once he’s seen something with his own eyes, he believes in it. We won’t have any more problems with him now; and once he knows how it’s done, he’ll probably outvie us for creating illusions of his own. You wait and see.” He looked speculatively at the window. The torches and the stage had vanished; in her moment of mental furor Indigo had lost her hold on those images and they’d flickered away, but Forth neither knew nor cared about the reasons for their disappearance. They’d be easy enough to recreate when the moment came.

  “Reality imposed on illusion,” he said. “We can do it, Indigo. We truly can turn this accursed world on its head! And when the demon comes running to our lure—it dies!” He snapped his fingers.

  Indigo smiled thinly. Forth’s description was simplistic, but close enough to the truth. The demon had claimed it couldn’t die; yet she believed that it couldn’t continue to live in a world that was real. That was the core of her hope. The demon had no true life of its own, but existed only through the illusions it created. Tear down the fabric of those illusions, scatter them and replace them with the reality of flesh-and-blood life, and there would be nothing to sustain its vampiric hunger.

  They could do it. They had the power—perhaps, she thought uneasily, in the wake of the image she’d inadvertantly created, more power than they yet realized. Now, all that remained was to use it, and use it well.

  She said: “We’d best talk to your father.” Her gaze met Forth’s and she smiled at him. “This is the final act of the play. Let’s make sure it’s the best performance the Brabazon Fairplayers have ever given!”

  Esty had dubbed it the Council of War, and no one was inclined to disagree with her. Stead, as Forth had predicted, threw himself headlong into the discussion—Indigo’s gamble had paid off handsomely, and Stead’s attitude had changed from scepticism and bafflement to wholehearted enthusiasm. If they’d only told him what this was all about from the start, he said in some pique, then a good deal of pointless wrangling could have been avoided. At this Esty had been forced to cover her mouth to suppress a snort of laughter, and Indigo and Forth exchanged wry grins.

  But as the council became more serious, the atmosphere rapidly sobered. The conversation had a bizarre and uncomfortable edge to it; on the surface they might have been discussing plans for any normal Brabazon entertainment; but underlying the familiar wrangling about the practicalities was the unspoken but emphatic knowledge that this show would be a very far cry indeed from anything that had ever gone before. At length, however, the fragmented ideas began to shape into a coherent picture; and at last Stead, who by now had stepped back into his customary role of troupe leader, called a halt.

  “We’ve said all we can say.” He thumped the heels of his hands together; a gesture that they all knew, from long experience, meant that he’d take no further argument. “Esty’s near asleep where she’s sitting—oh, yes you are, my girl,” as Esty tried to protest and swallow a yawn at the same time, “and I don’t doubt that the rest of us could do with a few hours’ sleep. No more talk now. We know what we’re going to do, so we rest, and then we begin.” He scanned the faces around him. “Any quarrel with that?”

  No one dissented. What Stead proposed made sense; they were all weary, and it would be foolhardy to face what lay ahead of them unrefreshed. The Apple Barrel’s linen cupboards yielded a plentiful supply of blankets, and so an armful was brought to the attic and they settled themselves to sleep.

  And, sleeping, Indigo dreamed of Grimya.

  In the dream, the she-wolf was calling to her and she was running over an endless black moor in pursuit. Sometimes she glimpsed Grimya’s racing form in the gloom ahead of her; but each time she tried to galvanize herself to greater efforts to catch up, she would stumble and fall. And as she ran, two figures ran alongside her, reaching out as though to take her hands but never quite touching. To her right, the Earth Mother’s emissary glided spectrally across the grass, hair and robe flying as though in a wind. To her left, fleet-footed and agile, Nemesis showed its cat’s teeth and laughed shrilly at her distress. And she was sobbing, because Grimya was in pain, Grimya needed her, and no matter how she strove she could never, never catch up with her.

  Indigo woke sharply from the dream, and knew instantly that she wouldn’t be able to sleep again. In the dim room her companions were motionless bulks on their rough beds; Stead was snoring. Quietly, not wanting to wake them, Indigo rose, tiptoed out of the room and descended the stairs to the tavern’s middle floor. She felt restless, disturbed by the dream; and deep within her was an aching desire to run down to the ground level, fling open the bolted door and rush into the square to call Grimya’s name. It was foolish, of course: Grimya wouldn’t come; or if she did, she would come as an enemy and not a friend. But the nightmare had awoken feelings that were too tangled, too deep and too personal to rationalize even to herself.

  She had been wandering aimlessly along the first-floor landing, peering into the empty rooms but without any interest. One room, larger than its neighbors, boasted two windows that overlooked the square, and Indigo walked in and across the floor to lean morosely on one of the window ledges and gaze out. Nothing to see in the square; nothing moving. And no trace of Grimya …

  It was strange, but after her brief burst of grief when she’d confronted Grimya in the square, she’d been utterly dry-eyed. Even if she’d wanted to weep now, tears weren’t in her. Instead, she felt a cold, hard core of misery that was made all the more acute by guilt as she realized clearly, perhaps for the first time, just how little effort she’d made so far to save her friend. She despised herself for that; though she knew that Grimya—the old Grimya—would have argued the point vehemently. Well, for once Grimya would have been wrong. The dream, with its images of Nemesis’s mockery and the emissary’s cool, dispassionate judgment, had brought the truth home to her, and in the wake of it she had made a resolution. Before anything else, and above all other goals, she had to find Grimya and win her mind back from the demon’s thrall. It wasn’t simply a matter of loyalty, though that in itself would have been reason enough. It was a matter of responsibility, and of love.

  Preoccupied with her unhappy thoughts, she didn’t hear the uncertain footsteps on the stairs and in the passage outside, nor the soft sounds of doors being opened and closed. Only when a floorboard behind her creaked did she start out of her r
everie, and look round.

  Forth stood on the threshold of the room. There was concern in his eyes.

  “Indigo? I—wondered where you were. Is—is everything all right?”

  Indigo pushed down a twinge of irritation at the intrusion into her privacy. Forth wasn’t to know; she couldn’t in fairness be angry with him.

  “I’m fine, Forth. I just didn’t want to sleep any longer.”

  Encouraged, he came into the room and shut the door behind him. “Da and Esty are still dead to the world.” A pause. “I suppose there isn’t any sign of her? Of Grimya, I mean?”

  Indigo had turned back to the window; she didn’t look at him. “No. No sign.”

  Forth sighed. “That’s what’s troubling you, isn’t it? Indigo, I understand! I know Grimya’s as dear to you as—as Chari is to Da.” That wasn’t the simile that he’d intended to use, but at the last moment his courage had failed. He came forward and took her left hand. Indigo didn’t draw it away, but neither did she respond; her fingers only lay limp in his.

  “We’ll save her,” Forth continued urgently. “Somehow, Indigo, I know we will!”

  He was trying to help, but his concern only made matters worse. Indigo gently pulled her hand away. “Forth, I don’t want to talk about it. Not now.”

  “But I think you should. You’re hurting yourself, damming up your feelings this way. Indigo, I’m going to find her for you, and I’m going to free her! Whatever it needs, whatever the cost—”

  “Please.” She spoke more sharply than she’d meant to, and instantly regretted her tone. Forth’s earnest hazel eyes were chagrined, and she saw how eager he was to be of value to her, how much her approbation would mean to him. She saw how much he loved her, and had to look away again. Poor Forth: there was so much he didn’t know; so much that would, were he to discover it, shatter his ideal of her. He was a sad and precarious blend of man and child, his untainted experience almost as far removed from her own as it was possible to be. She could see his dreams as clearly as though he’d gone down on one knee and declared them to her, and they were the dreams of youth, of optimism and of unquestioning belief in his own invincibility. Poor, dear, loving Forth. He was like a young animal, a young brother. And to tell him that she loved him in that way would be to destroy his fondest hopes: for whatever else he might be, Forth was not Fenran. And no one, least of all this eager, would-be suitor who strove so hard to be strong and courageous in her eyes, could ever take Fenran’s place.

  She said: “Forth, I’m deeply grateful for your kindness. But in this, there’s nothing you can do. If the enchantment on Grimya can be broken, I’m the only one who can break it.”

  “You can’t be sure of that.”

  “I can.” She smiled pityingly. “Please, Forth. I do appreciate how much you want to help, but—”

  “But you don’t want the help I can give.”

  “It isn’t that.”

  “Oh, but it is, isn’t it?” Suddenly Forth’s eyes were filled with angry pain. “You talk as if I’m a child; as if I haven’t the strength or the wisdom to do anything. But I’m not a child—I’m a man!” Suddenly he moved, taking hold of her upper arms. She tried to evade him, but the window was at her back and she was cornered.

  “Indigo.” Forth’s tone had changed. The quick flash of anger was gone, but the urgency that had replaced it was no less intense. “Indigo, you’re not blind. You must know how I feel about you. Goddess help me, I love you!”

  She looked steadily back at him, trying not to let the sympathy she felt show in her eyes. “Please don’t say that.”

  “Why shouldn’t I say it? It’s true!”

  She shook her head. “You don’t know me. You may think you do, but you’re wrong.” Then, seeing that he wasn’t going to accept that, wasn’t going to listen, she added, “And haven’t you considered my feelings in the matter?”

  “Of course I have! I’ve barely thought of anything else—I want to help you; I want to make you happy—”

  “Happy?” She, too, was growing angry now; angry at his presumption. She tried to shake his hands off but he tightened his grip, and her anger increased. Naivete and youthful love, however deeply felt, didn’t excuse this behaviour.

  “Forth, let go of me.”

  “Indigo—”

  “I said, let go! What right do you think you have to behave like this?” Indigo’s face was white with fury, and suddenly she didn’t care if she hurt him; indeed she wanted to hurt him, pay him back for intruding so selfishly on her, and for awakening an old, ingrained grief. Her blue-violet eyes narrowed to painful slits, and she said savagely: “I don’t love you, Forth, and I never could. I love Fenran. And Fenran is a man—not a half-grown, foolish boy!”

  Color blazed into life in Forth’s cheeks—and without warning his tight-strung emotions boiled over.

  “Fenran is dead!” He shook her, with a violence that shocked her. “He’s dead! But I’m alive, and I’m here, and I’m real!” And before Indigo could react, he pulled her forcibly towards him and his mouth locked hungrily on hers, tongue probing, forcing between her teeth.

  Indigo uttered a muffled, inarticulate sound and tried to writhe free. But Forth pushed her back and her spine jarred against the window ledge, pinning her.

  “I love you!” He broke away for long enough to gasp out the passionate words, kissing her chin, her cheeks, any part of her face he could find in his excitement. “And you can love me—I know you can, I know it! Please, Indigo. Oh, please …”

  His lips sought hers again; he was panting, gasping, his angular young body pressing hard against her. And suddenly Indigo’s anger flowered into violent rage. She wrenched her head aside, drawing a huge, gulping breath—then with a strength fueled by her fury she twisted free and hit him across the face. Despite the fact that she had little room to maneuver, a good deal of her weight was behind the blow, and Forth reeled back, almost losing his balance as he staggered into the corner. He put a hand up to his burning cheek and stared at her, unable to speak but with mingled emotions brimming in his eyes. Chagrin, shame, misery—and anger. Above all, anger.

  Indigo didn’t move. For a time that seemed endless yet was probably no more than a few seconds they looked at each other, aware of the frozen stalemate between them. Then Forth pushed himself away from the wall and stumbled across the room, groping for the door, jerking it open. It smashed back on its hinges behind him, and Indigo heard his feet clattering on the stairs as he ran back to the attic.

  •CHAPTER•XX•

  They were ready. And in the gloomy, shadowed market square of the phantom Bruhome, the stage was, literally, set for the most bizarre and yet most important performance of the Brabazon Fairplayers’ lives.

  Indigo had conjured the platform into being once more, but this time in a form that was solid and substantial. As the four of them stood gazing at it in the darkness she had, ironically, felt a sudden and disorientating sense of utter unreality: the stage looked grotesquely out of place in the square’s emptiness, like something from a feverish dream, and the deep silence that surrounded them made it all the more bizarre.

  Nothing had threatened them when, cautiously, they walked out of the tavern and into the square. There were no wolves waiting to ambush and attack; Indigo wondered whether the entire pack had been destroyed by the illusions she and Forth and Esty had created and, if so, what had then become of the illusions themselves; the bears and the chimerae and the Scatterers. And Grimya. Where was Grimya, now that her ghastly followers had vanished? And would the events that were about to begin in the square lure her back?

  She refused to allow herself to dwell on that thought, forcing her mind to concentrate instead on the task ahead. The show that they were about to perform would be in two parts. The first part was intended to draw the attention of the demon, throwing down the gauntlet of defiance and challenging it to face them; while the second part—and by far the more perilous—would, if they could achieve it, bring about
the demon’s final downfall.

  If they could achieve it. That was the crucial question, and one to which Indigo had no answer. As she stepped up on to the stage behind Forth and Esty, the sense of unreality swamped her for the second time, and with it came a wave of doubt and fear. Was she asking too much, both of herself and of the Brabazons? Was the whole scheme one of utter and hopeless insanity?

  Surreptitiously, she glanced at Forth a few feet away. He hadn’t spoken a word to her since the dismal fracas in the tavern, and his face was tense and grimly set. Esty, she knew, was aware of the rift between them and had guessed at the nature, if not the details, of its cause. But Indigo had avoided giving her any chance to ask private questions, and Forth just went about his preparations in mechanical, stony silence. Part of Indigo wanted to approach him and try to patch up the quarrel; but another, greater part counseled against it. It would be all too easy to make matters worse; and she still felt a residue of her earlier anger that made her unwilling to unbend in any way. She only hoped that Forth was wise enough not to jeopardize their plan through some twisted desire to strike back at her. She didn’t think he’d be such a fool; but the fear was there none the less.

  So may pitfalls; so many risks. Earth Mother, Indigo prayed in fervent silence, help me. If you can, please help and guide me now!

  But it was too late for second thoughts. Stead had taken up his position at the front of the stage, and despite her mood, despite the disconcerting emptiness of the square, the tense anticipation that always preceded the start of a performance was beginning to prickle like ice-cold needles in her veins. She could hear Esty’s rapid, excited breathing, and Forth’s feet shuffling in nervous restlessness. Stead turned to face them, a bearlike silhouette in the gloom; they felt, almost palpably, that he was taking the reins, exerting his control. The atmosphere tensed: Indigo gathered her will, readied herself—