Louise Cooper - Indigo 06 - Avatar

by Louise Cooper - Indigo 06

  “No …” The High Priestess’s voice cracked on the word as hysteria clutched at her. “No—it isn’t possible! You are dead!”

  “I am alive.” Beneath the towering crown of the oracle, Indigo’s lips smiled, though her eyes were cold and still. “I have been to the Ancestral Lady’s realm, Uluye, and I have returned.”

  The group of priestesses clustered around the rock at Uluye’s feet shrank back, whimpering. Indigo stopped five paces from the rock, and Uluye stared down at her. To either side, the throng of onlookers were starting to murmur. Few could see for themselves what had disrupted the ceremony; of those who could see, none understood, and their uncertainty was rapidly giving rise to agitation and fear.

  Uluye ignored them. Her entire consciousness was focused on Indigo, and a chaotic mayhem of clashing emotions tumbled through her brain. Her jaw worked; her voice, when finally it came, was a savage hiss.

  “What are you?”

  Indigo suddenly saw through the mask of the High Priestess’s face to the confused, frightened and unhappy woman beneath. Truly, Uluye was a servant of her goddess; and both, in turn, were enslaved to another power that neither of them even dared acknowledge, let alone try to control and overcome. Pity filled Indigo: pity, and a fierce renewal of her vow that this demon’s reign should come to an end.

  She said, “I am one who has come to reveal to you the true face and the true will of your goddess.”

  Uluye’s hard, dark eyes narrowed. “That is a blasphemous lie!” she spat. “You are not our oracle. Our oracle betrayed us, and the Ancestral Lady claimed her soul!” She licked bone-dry lips and seemed to be trying to swallow something that threatened to choke her. “I ask you again, I demand—what manner of evil and unholy demon are you? Are you the hushu that the false oracle became when the Lady cast her soulless corpse out of her realm? Or are you Indigo’s vengeful ghost, seeking to wreak more havoc?” She pointed a threatening finger. “I will have an answer!”

  Indigo gazed steadily back at her. “No, Uluye, I am neither hushu nor ghost nor demon. I am Indigo.‘’ She stepped forward, and as Uluye’s acolytes scattered from her path, she held up one hand. ”Touch me. My flesh is warm; I am human, and as alive as you!“

  Uluye didn’t flinch, as her women had done, but her mouth curled in a sneer. “Touch you, and be infected by the spell of the undead? You must think me a child, demon!”

  Indigo smiled coldly. “I don’t think you a child, Uluye. But I think you are afraid.” She reached out a little farther, and this time Uluye couldn’t control the reflex that made her shrink back. “What are you afraid of? Demons and hushu? No, I don’t think so. I think you fear the consequences of daring to acknowledge the truth you see with your own eyes.”

  “Truth?” Uluye spat venomously.

  “Yes, truth! That I have returned, living and breathing and unscathed, from the Ancestral Lady’s realm. Your goddess didn’t kill me, or punish me for the blasphemy of which you so righteously accuse me. She didn’t take vengeance, Uluye—she doesn’t possess that power over me, for I will not allow her to take it!”

  Before Uluye could react, Indigo turned from the rock and walked to the center of the arena. The sun, swollen and crimson, was touching the treetops now, and the lake looked like a vast pool of blood. The women on the arena drew back quickly, so that when Indigo turned again to face the High Priestess, her figure, alone on the sand, looked stark and dramatic against the spectacular backdrop.

  “You claim to love the Ancestral Lady.” Indigo’s voice carried clearly to the crowd; ranks of silent faces stared back at her, and she felt sickened by the terror she saw in their eyes. “But what manner of love is it that drives you to murder your own child in her name?”

  She turned to look at the ugly outlines of the two wooden frames at the lake’s edge. From here, the helpless forms of Yima and Tiam were no more than indistinct silhouettes, but Indigo’s sharply heightened senses could feel their misery and despair as tangibly as Grimya might catch scent on a breeze. Anger gripped her, and she grasped hold of it.

  “What crimes have Yima and Tiam committed, Uluye?” she demanded furiously. “Have they broken your laws? Have they stolen, or cheated, or murdered? No! Their only sin was to defy your will—not the Ancestral Lady’s will; yours!”

  Uluye’s face twisted in outrage, and she drew herself up to her full height. Her whole frame trembled with rising wrath, and her voice rang shrilly as she flung out one accusing arm to point in the direction of the torchlit square, where Shalune and Inuss still lay. “With her own hand, the Ancestral Lady executed those miserable conspirators, and she has sent their bodies back to us to be given to the hushu. Her will is clear, demon! And the punishment for flouting it is destruction!”

  “No!” Indigo retaliated. “You claim to be her High Priestess, you claim to know her will, but you are wrong. The Ancestral Lady didn’t kill Shalune and Inuss—you did, Uluye. Youdid!”

  Uluye stared down at Indigo, and for a moment—for just a moment—her virulence wavered and a hint of uncertainty showed on her face. Then her mouth and jaw hardened into a brutal line once more, and she hissed dangerously.

  “You dare to claim—”

  Indigo interrupted hotly. “Yes, I dare! You caused their deaths, as surely as if you’d plunged a knife into their hearts. Do you know what killed them, Uluye? Do you? I’ll tell you. It was a demon, and that demon is called fear! The same demon that you, and your mother before you—yes, I’ve heard the stories about that monstrous woman—and all of the High Priestesses who have reigned here for centuries past, wielded as a weapon against their own followers. You rule by fear, Uluye; it has become your watchword. Yet you, and the Ancestral Lady in whose name you rule, are slaves to a fear far greater than that which you seek to strike into your people’s hearts.

  “You and she are afraid of losing your place in the world. You are afraid that a day may come when your followers no longer love you. And you want to be loved; you want to be respected; you want to be revered. But what true reverence can there be for a cruel goddess and her harsh and unyielding High Priestess? What real love can your people have for a woman who is ready to slay her own daughter, or for a deity who demands such a monstrous sacrifice to be made in her name? Oh, they respect you, Uluye. Perhaps they admire your strength and your faith. But do they love you? Or are they simply too terrified to admit the truth: that you, and the Ancestral Lady, are nothing better than tyrants who hold them in miserable thrall?”

  For perhaps five seconds there was stunned silence. Then, barely audible at first, but increasing rapidly from a murmuring to a muttering to a muted roar, voices began to rise from the crowd like a gale approaching through the forest. Uluye stood as motionless as a statue while the noise swelled around her, and her sharp ears caught individual words bobbing like flotsam on a tide. Uluye … the goddess … oracle … hushu … sacrifice….

  With a violent movement, she spun around to face the throng. She flung her arms wide in a commanding gesture, and the women near the rock at her feet drew back in shock as they felt the current of psychic energy that suddenly surged from her. Then her voice shrieked above the babble as she howled for silence, and instantly five hundred voices fell quiet and five hundred faces turned to stare at her in stunned awe. Ribcage heaving, legs trembling beneath her robe, Uluye scanned the crowd with a fearsome, glittering gaze. For the moment, she had them under control; they were more afraid of her than they were of Indigo, or of the thing that Indigo had become. She must hold them, keep her grip on them, for if she was weak, or showed a moment’s uncertainty or indecision, she would be lost.

  And you, Uluye, what are you afraid of…? Suddenly her heart lurched so hard that she nearly choked as, unbidden, her memory conjured the image of her daughter as she was led down from the citadel and past the rock where her mother, her judge and executioner, stood watching. My only child … she didn ‘t look up as she went by; she didn’t once look at me….

  A surg
e of violent fury erupted in her mind and crushed the momentary emotion out of existence. She would not be swayed; she would not doubt! The Lady had exacted her just vengeance on Shalune and Inuss for their crimes, and now Yima and her lover must pay the same penalty. Anything else was unthinkable. I am the High Priestess, Uluye thought ferociously. I cannot be mistaken—I cannot!

  Her voice rang out over the heads of the crowd. “Hear me! I, Uluye, the chosen servant of the Ancestral Lady, speak to you in her sacred name, and I denounce this false oracle who stands before me. The Lady’s will is clear, and her will is paramount! Hear me now, and be warned that I shall call the Lady’s wrath upon any who dare to defy her!”

  She dropped to a crouch and snatched a spear from the hand of one of her acolytes below, then jerked upright once more. The light of the dying sun made the spear tip glitter like fire as Uluye raised it high above her head.

  “I am the Lady’s chosen!” she shouted, and the crowd cried out in response, though their cries were nervous and uncertain. “I am the High Priestess, and spiritual daughter of the Mistress of the Dead! And I curse this demon who prowls among us as the hushu prowl in the night. She seeks to turn you from the Lady’s service, and one faithless heart is all she craves; just one heart in which to sow her poisoned seed!” Her voice rose to a venomous scream. “Is there one such heart among you?”

  “No!” the watchers cried. “No, Uluye, no!”

  “Be sure of that!” Uluye exhorted them in a threatening and murderous hiss. “Be sure of it; for if there is anyone among you, man, woman or child, who does not keep faith, I shall curse that one, and I shall devour that one’s soul, and I shall name that one hushu even as I name this vile demon! Do you hear me?”

  “We hear, Uluye! We hear!”

  Fired by their leader’s wild tirade, three of the priestesses nearest to Uluye had snatched up drum and sistrums, and now they began to rattle out a harsh, staccato rhythm. Their voices rose shrilly in a chant that others swiftly took up, and they formed a line to either side of the rock where Uluye stood, their bodies swaying and their feet stamping. Quivering with the knowledge of her ascendancy, Uluye turned about. With the spear still gripped in her hand, she sprang down from the rock and, beckoning to two of her women to follow, stalked slowly and menacingly toward Indigo, who still stood alone and defiant on the sand.

  “Now,” she said, savagely but so softly that only her quarry and the two attendants could hear, “I shall show you the meaning of fear, oracle!” She snapped her fingers at the women. “Take her!”

  As the two started forward, Indigo could see from their eyes that they were afraid of her; but their terror of Uluye was greater still, and they dared not disobey the order. She didn’t resist as they caught hold of her arms—that, too, disconcerted them—but as they pinned her, a voice sounded silently in her mind.

  Indigo! It was Grimya. The moment Indigo had made her presence known to the crowd, the wolf had left the temple and streaked down from the ziggurat to wait and watch at the foot of the stairs. Indigo, be careful! She is dangerous—

  No, Grimya, wait! Indigo sent back the swift message as she sensed that the wolf was about to come running to her aid. Stay where you are! It was vital that Grimya shouldn’t intervene now. She must cope with this alone.

  Uluye was advancing, the spear how poised to strike directly at Indigo’s heart. She was only seven paces away; six; five…. Indigo felt her muscles tensing, but she forced herself to show no outward sign of the tension, and her gaze stayed fixed unwaveringly, calmly, on Uluye’s face.

  This is what you wanted, isn ‘t it, madam ? Contempt gave the unspoken words extra emphasis as she thought of the Ancestral Lady hiding in her dark realm. A confrontation with your High Priestess, a trial to see whose will is the stronger. How far will you go in testing Uluye’s faith and my courage? How far, before I prove to you that your worshipers’ fear of you can be overcome? Still the Mistress of the Dead refused to answer her, but Indigo thought she felt the faintest of stirrings somewhere deep down in her consciousness, the sense of something listening, waiting….

  Uluye took another pace forward, then stopped. The spear was only inches from Indigo’s heart now, but Indigo didn’t so much as glance at it. Strange … she didn’t know what would happen if Uluye did strike. She had no doubt that the spear would pierce her, but what then? What if her heart was split, or if she bled and the bleeding couldn’t be stanched? She couldn’t answer those questions; all she knew was that no matter what might befall her, she would not die. She wasn’t willing to die—and besides, she felt certain that it wouldn’t come to that.

  Uluye was looking into her eyes, and a cold smile curved the High Priestess’s lips. “Are you afraid now, oracle; now that the moment approaches when your soul is to be consigned to destruction?”

  Indigo said: “No.”

  “Then you are a greater fool than I believed.” But Uluye’s eyes suddenly belied the smile; that was the sign that Indigo had been waiting for, the first brief flicker of wavering confidence. “Do you not know what it is to be hushu?” Uluye continued. ”Can you not imagine what life in death will be like for you, when you walk the forest each night, howling with a hunger and a thirst that can never be assuaged? Do you know what it is to lose your soul, yet to know that you will never truly die?“

  The spear in her hand trembled suddenly, briefly; and Indigo knew then that Uluye was desperate.

  “Oh, yes.” She spoke softly. “I can imagine that, for I have seen far worse, and I have faced far worse. The hushu hold no terrors for me. I feel only pity for them. Don’t you, Uluye? Don’t you pity Shalune and Inuss?” She paused, just long enough to see and be sure of the sudden, fearful tensing of the muscles in the High Priestess’s face, then added with terrible gentleness, “Don’t you pity Yima?”

  For a moment she thought it would be as she’d prayed it might, for Uluye’s eyes grew wide with shock as, perhaps for the first time, true understanding of what she had done to her daughter broke through the barriers she had created in her mind and hit her like a hammer blow. Desperately, the High Priestess’s roiling consciousness reached out for help, for guidance: Lady, could it be true? Have I been wrong?

  And before Indigo’s inner vision, a silver corona flared about eyes blacker than the deeps of space, and in her skull she heard the Ancestral Lady’s laughter.

  Uluye shrieked. She flung her head back so that the great feathered headdress fell awry, and raised the spear high in both hands.

  “Demon!” Her eyes were mad with terror and loathing. “Demon! I send you to the hushu, I curse you, I damn you to eternity!”

  The spear came flashing down, a searing death strike to Indigo’s heart—and Grimya burst from behind the line of chanting women, a gray streak hurtling across the sand, leaping, flinging herself with a maniacal snarl at Uluye’s throat. The spear flew spinning from the High Priestess’s hand as she went down under the wolf’s onslaught, and Grimya’s fury crashed into Indigo’s head like a breaking wave: kill, I will kill, I will kill—

  “Grimya, no!” Wrenching her arms free from her captors’ grasp, Indigo rushed at the wolf and tried to grab the scruff of her neck. “Don’t do it, don’t kill her!” Somehow she managed to batter the command through the red rage that was Grimya’s consciousness, and they fell rolling together onto the sand, with Uluye sprawled three feet away.

  As she struggled shakily to her knees, one hand still gripping Grimya’s fur, Indigo had the impression that she and the wolf and Uluye had suddenly become the only protagonists in a bizarre ritual whose rules none of them truly comprehended. Or, perhaps more apposite, actors in a play that hadn’t yet been written. She had expected that the other priestesses would come to the aid of their leader, but they had not; instead, they had shrunk back, forming a tight, frightened semicircle at a prudent distance. However afraid they might be of their High Priestess, they were now more terrified by far of the oracle and her companion.

  Uluye beg
an to move. Grimya bared her fangs and snarled again, but Indigo shook her. “No, Grimya! Leave her.” And to Uluye: “You know she has the power of human speech and understanding. She will obey me.”

  Uluye got to her feet. Grimya had torn the towering headdress to shreds in her efforts to find the Priestess’s throat, and with an unsteady hand, Uluye pushed the remnants to the back of her skull, where they clung amid the oiled tangles of her hair. Her right ear, arm and shoulder were bleeding, but she either didn’t know or didn’t care.

  Indigo, too, stood upright, watching her adversary intently. She had miscalculated, and that was a mistake she couldn’t afford to repeat. The next few minutes, she thought, would be vital.

  “Uluye,” she said, “I am not your enemy.” Uluye made a choked, vicious sound at the back of her throat, and Indigo shook her head. “You must believe it; you have the evidence.” She indicated the wolf. Grimya was calmer now, though the moment Indigo released her, she had placed herself like a sentinel between the two women, her stance tense and protective.

  “Grimya could have killed you just now. She would have, had I not called her off. But I did call her off. Would an enemy have spared you, Uluye?” She smiled thinly, ironically. “Would you have spared me if our positions had been reversed?”

  She saw the answer to that in Uluye’s eyes, the glitter of angry and bitter resentment. But the deadly moment had passed. She must speak now, Indigo thought, before Uluye’s pride regained the upper hand and the advantage was lost.

  “Madam.” She used the formal mode with which she had addressed the Ancestral Lady, at the same time making the ritualized gesture that was a sign of deep respect between equals. She saw Uluye’s eyes narrow in wary surprise. “I am not your oracle. I never have been. The Ancestral Lady attempted to take control of my mind and use me, just as she controls and uses you and your priestesses, and all of the people who pay her fealty. She didn’t succeed, because she couldn’t compel me to fear her. She tried …” Her eyes grew suddenly introverted, and she stared down at the sand beneath her feet. “Sweet Earth Mother, she tried … but she failed, because I discovered that I had no good reason to be afraid of her.”