Louise Cooper - Indigo 06 - Avatar Read online

  CONTENTS

  Prologue 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

  “Grimya!” Her mind was floundering and she called the wolf’s name aloud, groping for a spar of coherence in the heaving sea that her consciousness had become.

  Grimya’s mental voice seemed to come from a vast distance. I can’t reach you! They are holding me back! Indigo—

  But suddenly the wolf’s call was cut off as though a solid wall had crashed down between Indigo and her own senses. A jolt shot through her body, a moment of excruciating pain gripped her …

  And a dark cold voice began to address her.

  NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  AVATAR

  Copyright « 1992 by Louise Cooper

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

  49 West 24th Street

  New York, N.Y. 10010

  Cover art by Gary Ruddell

  ISBN: 0-812-50802-5

  First edition: January 1992

  Printed in the United States of America

  0987654321

  Let them hate, so long as they fear.

  —Lucius Accius, 170-90 bc

  For Tim and Dot Oakes

  One of these days we will have that jam.

  •PROLOGUE•

  Now, on the rare occasions when she looks in a mirror, she asks herself: how long has it been? And the answer sends a shiver through her marrow.

  For almost half a century she has roamed the earth, and in all those long years she has aged not one day, since the moment when she left her homeland, far in the south, to begin a journey that, seemingly, has no end. She cannot die, she is immortal; and her name might by now have become a legend, but for the fact that in her fifty summers of wandering, she has taken care that the trappings of fame, or notoriety, or even simple knowledge, should not attach themselves to her. She has good reason to ensure that no one should know the name she was given at her birth, long ago and far away in her father’s home at Carn Caille. And the name she uses now—Indigo, which is also the color of mourning in her homeland—is one she hopes that those she meets upon her long road will forget in good time.

  Half a century ago, she was a princess. Half a century ago, wild curiosity got the better of her and she broke a taboo that her people had upheld since time immemorial. Seven evils, pent for centuries past in an ancient and crumbling tower long shunned by mankind. Seven evils, released upon the world by her hand, to wreak havoc. Seven evils, which she alone must find and conquer and destroy, if she—and the world—are ever to know peace again.

  Indigo’s travels have taken her to strange countries and led her into stranger adventures. She has seen the burning heartlands, where smoke blackens the sky at noon and the thunder of volcanoes shakes the land’s very foundations. She has lived among the shimmering, dreamlike palaces of Simhara, fabled city of the East, where Death wore a deceiver’s mask. She has danced and sung with the traveling players of Bruhome, where she learned the true meaning of illusion. And she has turned her face to the freezing snows of the polar north, and heard the ominous voice of the Snow Tiger that promised joy and grief in equal measure. She has made dear friends and bitter enemies, she has seen the beginnings and the ends of many other lives; and now four evils, four demons, have been destroyed by her hand. But the price has often been a cruel one, and though from time to time she has rested from her wanderings, she knows that her quest is by no means ended.

  For a few years she has known a kind of peace. From the icy northern wastes she traveled south when spring opened the sea-lanes, and in the cheerful, sprawling ports of Davakos, famed for its ships and mariners, she returned to the seagoing ways of her own people, and for a while found something akin to happiness. Now, though, the hiatus is over and she must move on. The lodestone that has guided her in her wanderings is alive again, and this time it is urging her eastward to the Dark Isle, whose peoples and ways are shadowed in mystery. Another demon awaits her; another battle must be joined.

  Yet Indigo will not face this newest battle alone. Throughout the years, one friend has remained constantly by her side; a friend who has chosen to share her immortality, and whose loyalty and love have become a touchstone in Indigo’s life. The mutant she-wolf Grimya has also known what it is to be an outcast among her own kind, and the bond that has formed between them is one that no power could ever break.

  Now Indigo and Grimya have made their last farewells to Davakos, and to the ship that carried them to the Dark Isle’s hostile and sweatingly humid shores. Ahead lies an unknown country, with unknown dangers, and they know that at the end of their road, they must face another mystery. They have learned that it is wiser not to speculate about the nature of each new trial. But as the long trek begins, through strange forests and among alien creatures, perhaps they cannot help but wonder, despite their resolution, what their future may hold this time….

  •CHAPTER•I•

  From the heart of the forest something vast, invisible and decaying exhaled a huge breath. The air shifted, stirring leaves on the branches of the overcrowded trees, lifting dust in sluggish eddies; and a sweet-sick stench of earth and rotting vegetation and mortifying flesh filled the she-wolf Grimya’s nostrils as she raised her head, alerted to the sudden change in the atmosphere.

  Her long, lean body quivered and the brindled fur along her spine rose, bristling. A growl formed in her throat but died before she could voice it. The rising of the wind presaged rain; she could feel it as surely as she felt the ground under her feet, and she didn’t like the omen. By the time the sun touched the treetops, this road would be a river, yet still there was no sign of anyone who might help her.

  She turned and looked back along the empty track. The trees crowded in like predators, their branches tangling overhead to form a dank, gloomy tunnel. Only a few stray shafts of sunlight broke through here and there, creating distorted shadows, and the heat under the claustrophobic green blanket was becoming insufferable. Even the background racket of the jungle, which had been beating against her ears in an incessant, inescapable and nerveracking assault, had ceased utterly: not so much as a bird’s cackle broke the oppressive silence.

  She couldn’t stay here, Grimya thought. Not like this, not with the rainstorm coming. She had to go on. And however hard it might be, whatever persuasions or threats she had to use, she must make her companion go with her.

  She turned onto the track once again. No matter how great the urgency, she couldn’t run; her body and her instincts rebelled against the rank, suffocating heat and it took all the strength she could muster to plod wearily back to where the track was crossed by a lesser path through the jungle. Here the bushes encroached onto the rough road to provide some cover, if not shelter, and Grimya had hoped that someone might pass by, a logger perhaps, or even an ox-cart bound for one of the outpost settlements in the forest’s depths. But the hope had been futile and now she dared not wait any longer.

  Indigo was sitting in the midst of the three bags that were the sum total of their belongings. Her shoulders were slumped and her head hanging so that her long, gray-streaked auburn hair obscured her face like a damp curtain; her thin
shirt and loose trousers were dark with sweat. Even from a distance, Grimya could see her shoulders heaving convulsively as she breathed, and drawing nearer, she heard the stertorous rattling of air in her friend’s throat.

  “In-digo!” Grimya’s voice broke the stillness harshly. With only the animals and birds of the forest to hear her, she made no attempt to hide her peculiar ability to speak in human tongues, and she .ran forward to lick Indigo’s hands where they lay passively in her lap. “In-digo, we c … can’t stay here any longer. There’s a rr-ainstorm coming. We must find shelter!”

  Indigo looked up. Her eyes were red-rimmed and a film of sweat gave her face’s pallor a disturbingly unnatural sheen. For a moment she stared at Grimya as though she were regarding a stranger; then a glimmer of dull comprehension struggled to the surface.

  “I feel …” She stopped, tried to wipe her mouth, but seemed unable to coordinate her hand movements and abandoned the attempt. “I feel so sick.”

  Pity swelled Grimya’s heart, but fear was stronger. “Indigo, we must move on! There is dan-ger here.” She looked quickly along the track in both directions, licking her chops nervously. “We dare not stay and hope that someone will come. It is too grrr-eat a risk. Please, In-digo. Please.”

  “My head …” Indigo bit her lip and shut her eyes as an injudicious movement made her wince. “It hurts so. I can’t make the pain stop, I can’t make it go away …”

  “But—”

  “No.” She spoke the word through clenched teeth, so that it came out as little more than a painful grunt. “No, I—I understand. We have to go on. Yes. I’ll be all right. If I can just…” she started to paw feebly at her baggage “… just gather these. I won’t leave them.”

  Slowly she unfolded her body from its cramped posture, moving like an arthritic crone. Grimya watched anxiously, frustrated by her inability to help as Indigo awkwardly pulled together the three bags and gathered them onto her back. At last they were in place. Indigo tried to stand up, staggered, and caught at a low-hanging branch to steady herself.

  “No,” she said again before Grimya could speak. “I can walk. I can.” Cautiously she released the branch and took two unsteady paces to the track. Her face and neck flushed crimson, and sweat broke out anew on her brow, dripping down into her eyes. “I m-might have to stop. In a while. If…” She shook her head as her tongue refused to obey and allow her to finish the sentence. For perhaps half a minute she stood swaying a little; then she blinked and drew a gulping breath. “The birds,” she whispered. “They’re not calling anymore.”

  “They know what is coming.”

  Indigo nodded. “Yes. They know, don’t they? Shelter. Must find … find shelter.”

  For one awful moment Grimya thought Indigo would collapse where she stood and be unable to rise again, but with a great effort, Indigo got a grip on her reeling senses and started forward. At that same moment, through the deep and long-established telepathic link that they shared, the wolf felt something of the fever burning in her companion’s mind, and an involuntary shudder racked her as she realized that the imminent storm was by no means the worst of the dangers that faced them now.

  She swallowed back a whine of misery, paused briefly to glance up at the darkening canopy of leaves above their heads, then set off in Indigo’s wake.

  The storm came with the fall of the swift tropical twilight. The first bolt of lightning lit the forest in a silent, jagged flash, and from deep among the trees something shrieked like a murdered woman in frightened response. There was no thunder and, at first, no rain, but the heat and humidity pressed down harder and the earth below exhaled another great breath of putrefaction. As a second livid spear burst the dusk apart, Grimya looked worriedly over her shoulder to where Indigo stumbled two paces behind her. Indigo seemed oblivious to the lightning; her eyes were open but wide and febrile, as if she were looking into an imaginary nightmare world of her mind’s own making, and her lips moved as she murmured to herself. The wolf paused, waiting for her to catch up; then her heart contracted as she heard the first hissing—like a thousand angry snakes—high up in the leaf canopy above their heads. Seconds later, the rain began.

  It wasn’t like the kindly summer rains of her own homeland far away in another continent and another era. Nor even like the great deluges that swept her native forests in the spring of each year to herald the reawakening of life. This rain didn’t carry life, but death. A cataract, a cataclysm, pouring from the sky in a savage torrent that battered the trees and scouted the earth and turned the world to a sweltering, drowning hell from which there was no escape and no relief. This rain was evil. Grimya hunched her shoulders against the stinking downpour, looked through her streaming eyes at the swaying, staggering figure behind her and knew that Indigo wouldn’t be capable of standing up to the onslaught.

  “Indigo!” She cried out as loudly as she could, but the increasing roar of the deluge swept her voice away, and when she tried to reach Indigo by telepathy, she met a hot, blazing wall of fever and sickness that reason couldn’t penetrate. Indigo was shuddering as the water poured down on her, her hair was plastered over her skull and shoulders, and she had lost all sense of direction. Already the first rivulets were beginning to race along the sides of the track, spreading out over ground too parched to absorb them. Within a matter of minutes the road would be awash, and though Grimya might escape the water easily enough, Indigo hadn’t the energy or, in her fevered state, the wit to find shelter.

  Grimya caught hold of the hem of Indigo’s shirt and pulled with all her strength. The fabric tore; Indigo spun about, swaying, and staggered toward the undergrowth. More lightning ripped across the heavens, and a titanic crack as the bolt struck the forest made Grimya yelp and leap back in fright. She heard a roar somewhere in the distance as a tree ignited, and then the searing noise of fire and water meeting and joining battle. The forest was alive with flickering, deadly light, branches bending and tossing as though the trees were struggling to tear up their roots and escape.

  “Indigo!” the wolf cried again, frantic now. “Indigo, this way! Come on!” She ran after the stumbling, uncoordinated figure, and this time she was able to get a grip on one strap of Indigo’s pack. Teetering on her hind legs, almost overbalancing, she managed to steer her friend back onto the trail and for a few moments almost believed that it would be all right, that Indigo would pull herself together and find the strength to continue. But the hope was short-lived. Another lightning flash blasted through the forest, and as its glare hurled Indigo’s face into ghastly relief, Grimya saw her eyes roll up in their sockets. The wolf projected a frantic appeal, but Indigo swayed helplessly, keeled forward and fell face-first to the ground. For a few seconds she lay motionless. Then she tried to struggle up, supporting herself on her hands—and doubled over again, vomiting a thin stream of bile and blood.

  Panic clutched at Grimya as she realized that Indigo had reached the limit of her endurance. The wolf hadn’t the strength to drag her friend to shelter, and she raced around her in a circle, whining and yelping and nosing at her. Indigo, though, was no longer capable of responding; she huddled on the ground, her hands clenching and unclenching spasmodically, an ugly moaning vibrating in her throat.

  At length Grimya stopped circling and stared desperately through the rain at the track ahead. She didn’t want to leave Indigo’s side, but she would do nothing to help her, and every moment spent fruitlessly here would only make matters worse. She needed human aid. She had to find someone.

  She turned back to Indigo, wanting to explain her reasoning and say that she intended to run for help, but realized at once that any explanation would be meaningless. Whimpering, she swung about and broke into a weary, stiff-legged run, splashing through water that was now becoming a steady and deepening stream, racing, with the little energy she could still muster, away down the path. As she ran, she prayed silently to the great Earth Mother to take pity and help her—to let her meet a hunter or a logger, to let her find
a safe shelter, anything, anything that would bring succor to Indigo….

  Turning a bend in the track, she saw the kemb, and she slithered to a halt with a shocked yelp.

  For some moments she hardly dared to believe what her eyes told her. The kemb—it was one of the few words of the local language she’d so far picked up—was a single-storied, wooden, cabinlike structure, rattan-thatched and built on short but sturdy poles that held it clear of the ground and out of reach of water and snakes. A covered veranda ran the length of its frontage, with wooden steps leading up. From inside, discernible to Grimya’s nose even through the stinks of the hot and sodden forest, came the mingled smells of wood smoke and cooking food and human sweat.

  The Earth Mother had answered her! Grimya raced for the steps and scrabbled up the short flight, yelping and barking. Startled voices were raised inside the kemb, something clattered noisily; then a stocky, swarthy man appeared at the half-open door, with a dumpy woman behind him. His eyes widened as he saw the shuddering, soaking wolf and he uttered a stream of words that sounded angry and frightened together, flapping his arms wildly.

  Grimya cringed back, whining, then scrabbled about and barked toward the forest before turning again to fix him with a look of desperate appeal. He frowned, hesitated—the woman said something, shaking her head—and Grimya, bristling with the frustration of being unable to communicate more clearly, tried again to convey what she wanted. Something must have struck a chord, for after a swift exchange of words with the woman, the man called back into the kemb and another, younger man emerged. Cautiously they approached Grimya, not coming too close but speaking to her in interrogative tones. She wagged her tail, her tongue lolling; then she ran down the steps, looked back at them and barked urgently.

  Both men immediately disappeared inside the cabin and the wolf feared that they hadn’t understood. Moments later, however, they reemerged, the younger man carrying a heavy stave and the elder armed with a machete, and both hastened down the steps to join her. Grimya jumped up gratefully to lick the young man’s hand—she kept clear of the other’s knife, lest her gesture should be misinterpreted—and then set off at a run along the trail. She heard the men volubly cursing the storm, but it seemed they were inured to such conditions, for they followed her swiftly and surefootedly.