Quinas had tried to protest, but she had her own methods of coercion, and her prisoner now bore several further scars-from a knife this time, rather than from Jasker's elemental fire-as witness to her powers of persuasion. The chances were that she wouldn't need him, but if luck went against her, he could be valuable, and so she had considered the trouble of taking him with her worthwhile.

She didn't know what she would find when she reached her destination. Quinas had revealed all he knew, but she had been frustrated to discover that his knowledge was limited. He had never entered the Charchad Valley, had never crossed the final, heavily guarded ridge and looked down on the glowing pit from which his twisted religion had sprung. That privilege was reserved for those whom the Charchad deemed to be sinners in need of their deadly form of enlightenment. But as one of Aszareel's most influential acolytes, Quinas knew the ways into the valley, and now the time had come for him to follow the example he had enforced so savagely upon others. As a guide, Quinas would lead Indigo into the heart of Charchad-and as a hostage, he would help her fulfill at last her seething desire to confront the avatar of the demon she meant to destroy.

Once or twice a small voice within her had struggled to be heard, saying: And what then, Indigo? When you find Aszareel, how will you kill him and the demon he represents? But she had ignored it, silencing it beneath an avalanche of angry contempt. To falter would be the act of a weakling; she would not be prey to the doubts that had caused Jasker to flinch from what must be done. The demon would die, she told herself-that was all that mattered. And in her wrath, in her l.u.s.t for retribution, in her madness, she believed it.

At the sound of scrabbling paws Jasker sprang to his feet and turned in time to see Grimya race into the cave. The she-wolf slewed to a half and collapsed, panting, her sides heaving convulsively as she tried to drag air into her lungs. Dismayed, he hastened to fetch her a dish of water and watched as, gasping her grat.i.tude, she lapped and lapped until at last the worst of her thirst was slaked and she could speak coherently.

Jasker listened to her story with a sense of ominous despair that grew as the tale unfolded. When Grimya finished, he paced across the floor and stood looking down at the shrine.

By now the sun must be near setting, and from what Grimya had told him Jasker knew that hehad no hope of overtaking Indigo before she reached the Charchad Valley. Any attempt to follow her into that h.e.l.l would be nothing short of suicidal, and though he had little enough regard for his own life, a doomed rescue bid would be a futile sacrifice. There had to be another way.

And then, as he stared at the little statue of Ranaya, an inner voice told him that there was.

It wasn't possible. He had tried, he had striven, he had forced himself almost over the brink of sanity and life itself to achieve it, and every time he had tailed. Two years of struggling, and the door had remained barred to him. He couldn't try again. He didn't have the resources, the skill, or the stamina.

Then what, asked the inner voice, is the alternative?

Jasker shuddered as his own mind answered the question with bleak certainty. For the first time he had a chance-perhaps the only chance he would ever have-to turn the tide that had overtaken his land and was slowly but surely murdering it. United, he and Indigo might have been able to raise enough power to smash the Charchad's stranglehold, until Nemesis's machinations had broken the link between them. But it was possible, just possible, that the link could be reforged-if he had the courage and the will to do it.

The remedy was in his own hands, and it was a remedy that had so far failed. But this time he had an unexpected and unlikely ally, who might unwittingly hold the key....

He turned and looked at Grimya. Her head came up, and seeing his speculative gaze on her, she scrambled to her feet and came toward him. Her tongue lolled and her eyes were glazed with weariness, but she was determined not to let exhaustion get the better of her.

"Jas-ker?" She looked up at him pleadingly. "You have thh-ought of something?"

"I'm... not sure; not yet. I will need time-"

"But we hh-ave no time! Indigo is in dan-ger!"

"I know. But if we cannot physically bring her back, I must find another way."

The wolfs ears flicked. "You will use m... magic?" she asked dubiously.

Please Ranaya that I have the capability, Jasker thought, and aloud replied, "Yes. It's the only means left to us, Grimya."

"I . . understand. But . ." She looked toward the tunnel, her eyes uneasy. "If I w-were to go after her again, perhaps-"

"No. You'd risk your own life for no good purpose." He crouched down and gently touched the she-wolf's muzzle. "Grimya, please trust me. I believe I know of a way to save Indigo, but if it's to stand a chance of succeeding, I will need your help, and you must do as I ask. Will you?"

She was uncertain, two instincts at war within her.

"Please, Grimya," Jasker repeated. "For Indigo's sake." A shadow pa.s.sed over his face, as though old memories had briefly but poignantly awoken. "I don't want her to die any more than you do."

Perhaps Grimya sensed something of his thoughts, or perhaps his words alone were enough to convince her; he didn't know. But at last she raised her head and said, though still with a trace of hesitation, "Yess... I trr-ust you. And I will do whatever you want of me."

He could have hugged her, but all he said was, "Thank you."

"Wh-at do you mean to... do?" she asked.

Jasker stood up. "Before we can hope to rescue Indigo, we must break the hold Nemesis has over her," he said. "And that means using powers greater than those of the demon, to break through to her mind and make her realize the truth. That is where you must play a vital part."

"But I c-cannot reach her," Grimya reminded him.

"As she is now, no. But I believe that I can raise a power that will smash through the demon's defenses-and I will channel that power to Indigo's mind through you."

"A power... like the f-f-ire dragons?"

"No." Jasker's voice was somber. "Not like the fire dragons, Grimya. Something far greater, far older." He looked down at her with sympathy and respect, "It will take courage, little wolf, all the courage that you and I can muster. But we can do it."

"I am not af-raid. But what is this power, Jas-ker? What is it that you mean to do?"

The sorcerer's eyes took on a strange, distant expression, a look that Grimya had never seen inthem before. Then, quietly, he said: "I mean to summon Ranaya's Daughters from their long sleep."

*CHAPTER*XII*.

"It's no use." Quinas's mouth stretched in a painftil rictus that was his best attempt at an ironic smile. "You may do what you will to me, saia, but you can't change the simple feet that I can go no further."

Indigo stared down at him. In the gathering dark his face was a ghastly piebald of scar and shadow, and his one eye, catching the cold, greenish light that now filled the sky above the narrow gully, seemed to mock her. Anger seethed in her and she quelled an impulse to stretch out her foot and put him to the test by crushing his wrist under her heel. In truth, she believed him, for it was little short of a miracle that he'd been capable of stumbling on this far in his ravaged condition. For the last hundred yards or thereabouts he'd been reduced to crawling on elbows and knees-he had tried to use his fused and ruined hands, but the pain had proved too great-and had only covered the final ten paces when she gripped the end of the rope that bound his shoulders and dragged him bodily over the rough ground. But now she didn't doubt that he was finished.

She looked up and ahead to where the gully rose sharply to a ridge. The last ridge. That was what he had told her. The last ridge-and on the far side lay the vale of Charchad.

She turned back to her captive. His eye had closed and he was motionless; she prodded him with her toe.

"Wake up, you sewer worm. I'm not done with you yet."

The red lens flickered briefly. "Water..." Quinas coughed on the word. "If you have... a little water."

Indigo would have spat in his face, but couldn't muster the saliva. She knew that she, too, was suffering from dehydration, but was reluctant to squander more of her small supply than was absolutely necessary. At least now, with the sun below the horizon, it was a degree or two cooler. All she needed was the energy to climb the next ridge; then she would rest.

"What now, saia?" Quinas's dust-dry voice broke into her thoughts. He had realized that she wasn't going to give him water, and the realization made him less careful of his situation than he might otherwise have been. Again, he gave her the rictus smile. "There are no vultures in these mountains to eat my body and give me the slow death you have ordained. So will you simply leave my flesh to melt from my bones in the sun?"

Loathing glittered in Indigo's eyes. "I doubt that the sun would deign to touch your corrupted carca.s.s," she retorted. "No, Quinas. I have a better end in mind for you." Again she glanced at the ridge ahead. "If you cannot walk, you will be carried. But on your feet, on your knees, or on my back, one way or another you will enter the Charchad valley."

"No-" The protest was out before he could stop it, and for the first time indigo heard true fear in Quinas's voice.

"What's this? Is the n.o.ble follower of Charchad afraid?" She challenged him harshly, viciously, jerking on the rope so that he jolted with pain.

Broken teeth clamped down on his lower lip and the overseer whispered, "Yes..."

"Louder, Quinas. I can't hear you clearly enough!"

He drew a deep breath, then: "I said, yes!" His eye fixed her, a dreadful, unblinking stare of naked horror. "You cannot carry me. Not unless I cooperate-and that I will never do. You may hurt me, you may cut me or burn me or flay me; you may try to drag me bodily into that vale. But I'll fight you, saia. From somewhere I'll find the strength, and I'll fight you! And if I can no longer fight, then I will tear out the arteries in my own wrists with my teeth if I have to! But never, never, will I enter the Charchad Valley, because I fear it!"

He slumped back, drained by the effort of his vehement speech, and Indigo gazed down at him.

So Quinas was as terrified as his own pitiful victims of what lay in that vale. Quinas, acolyte of Charchad, loyal servant of Aszareel, could not face his master-and at the last he had been forced to admit it.She began to laugh. The sound was ugly and unnatural, but it bubbled up into her throat and she saw no reason to stop it.

"Quinas," she said, "Quinas, the scourge of sinners, the lighter of funeral pyres, the tormenter of women." She put the back of one hand to her mouth to suppress the gale of crazed mirth. Then the laughter died abruptly and her tone changed to one of scorching contempt. "Quinas, the groveling coward!"

"Yes," the overseer said quietly. "But honest enough to admit to it."

Reflexively, Indigo fingered the brooch at her breast. This amused her. This admission, this last-moment confession from the self-professed man of strength and courage, was funny. Too afraid to confront that which he so zealously compelled others to worship... she snorted back a fresh burst of laughter and wiped her eyes, feeling unaccountably excited. The situation had a delicious irony: Quinas, the Charchad acolyte, would cower here among the rocks and shun his G.o.d, while she, alone and unafraid, climbed the final ridge to spit in that same G.o.d's face. Jasker would have enjoyed such a joke- Indigo scowled, checking herself. She didn't want to think of Jasker, for he had proved himself no better than Quinas. Let him cower, too, safe in his caves. Let him mumble his prayers for the souls of Chrysiva and all the others like her, for all the good they'd do. Her time had come now. Hers, and no other's.

She stared up at the ridge, speculating, calculating. According to Quinas, this was one of the lesser paths to the vale, and although every approach was guarded constantly, there would be no more than two, perhaps three sentries on duty. They would be looking inward, alert for a sinner trying to flee, for no one entered Charchad by their own choice.

Until now.

She slung the crossbow onto her back, settled it, then turned back to Quinas for the last time.

Another cruel jerk on the rope, another wince of agony. Indigo smiled.

"Well, my cowardly friend, I have decided to grant you a little of the mercy which you deny to others. I have no more need of you-so you shall lie here and see the beginnings of my triumph." She bent down, putting her face close to his. "The end of Charchad, Quinas. Think on that while you wait for the sun to rise and drain the last of the life from your wretched body. The end!"

"Saia-" He made as though to reach toward her but fell back, too weak. His breath was short, and speaking was difficult. "I beg you... don't do this!"

"I am deaf to your pleas, Quinas. Entreat the moon, entreat the mountains-entreat the sun when it rises. They might hear you; I will not!"

"Indigo." He used her name for the first time since his capture. "Please-you are throwing away your life!"

Her answering smile was a cool and supercilious sneer. "Look to your own life, Quinas, whilst you still possess it. Make the most of the little you have left!"

She wanted to make some final gesture of contempt toward him, but could think of nothing appropriate. Let her actions be enough in themselves. Long before she returned, Quinas would be dead meat. She hefted the bow on her shoulder, drew her knife from its sheath, and walked away up the gully toward the ridge and the deadly glow beyond.

Quinas didn't move until the last faint sounds of Indigo's progress had faded into the ever-present background of throbbing, subterranean vibrations from the mines. Even then, when he had shifted his position to one more tolerable, he forced himself to count the pa.s.sage of another minute before he risked sitting up. His head swam from the effects of food and water deprivation and for a moment he thought he might lose consciousness; but he fought the spasm, dragging it under control at last. His breath rasped in the hot night air and pain was a constant fire throughout his body. But his will was unscathed. And his strength was by no means as depleted as he had led Indigo to think.

He knew now that the woman was utterly insane. The sorcerer who had put him to the torture was a feeble ghost by comparison; Indigo's madness was of an order that transcended anything remotely human. And it was that madness that had enabled Quinas to use his strongest weapon, and use it well.For in the throes of what she saw as her triumph, clouded by her obsession with revenge, Indigo had been only too ready to believe his little charade.

He guessed that she would by now be nearing the end of the gully. If he had judged correctly, that gave him just the time he needed, and he twisted his body about, struggling first to his knees and then, awkwardly, to his feet. Several times during the journey from the caves he had tried surrept.i.tiously to loosen the ropes binding his upper arms to his sides, but had failed. No matter; the bonds would hamper him, but he'd cope.

Pausing to catch his breath, he glanced along the canyon again and smiled faintly. He had always been a good orator, a good actor; but this time he'd excelled even his own expectations. Indigo had been easy prey for his pretense of exhaustion and terror, and his final plea to her not to go into the valley-a refining touch that had occurred to him on the spur of the moment-had sealed it perfectly. Satisfied that she had bested and shamed a craven coward, she had strutted away from him, leaving him, she thought, to die.

Quinas chuckled softly. He had no intention of dying yet. And Indigo, together with her unsuspecting companions-though their punishment would be meted out later-had a lesson in store. A lesson that he would take great pleasure in administering.

Loose shale slithered under his feet as he turned about, supporting himself against the rock wall.

Some ten paces back along the gully was a narrow side runnel, cut by lava in the days when these old volcanoes were active, that turned steeply downhill. Indigo hadn't noticed it, but Quinas had, and knew where it led. It was just wide enough to traverse, and determinedly ignoring the pain that shot through him, the overseer slid his battered body through the gap and merged with the darkness.

Indigo slithered to a halt as the path she had been following ended abruptly at the solid wall of the ridge.

To her right the gully's side had been shattered by a rock fall at some unguessable time in the past, and the last few feet of the path sheared away in a treacherous slide with few footholds. She caught her breath-getting air into her lungs was becoming more and more of an effort-and paused to take her bearings.

From where she stood to the top of the ridge was a climb of no more than fifty feet, and though the slope was acute, she didn't foresee any problems. She smiled ferally, then took a few disciplined sips from her water skin, enough to wet her throat but little more, before gripping the rock face to her left and swinging herself across the final, broken section of the path. For a moment she stood with her face pressed to the ridge, still smiling, savoring the excitement, the increasing, adrenaline-fired sense of triumph. So close now. Just minutes more, and the final goal would be in sight.

Indigo thought of Quinas, and laughed with soft, crazed pleasure. Perhaps she should have killed him-but it had seemed so much more fitting that he should be left for the elements to finish in their own good time, and to meditate meanwhile on his failure and on the imminent ruin of his depraved cult. The chuckle faded and she wiped her mouth, licking a few drops of water that transferred themselves from her lips to her hand. Then she looked up at the crest of the ridge: and drew in a stunned breath.

The crest was a silhouette that stood out stark and ragged against a backdrop of shimmering, phosph.o.r.escent light. A line of furious brilliance edged the rock like a ghastly halo, and through the cliff face Indigo felt a peculiar, rhythmic vibration that seemed to penetrate skin, flesh, and bone. It fueled her sense of antic.i.p.ation and, heart quickening, she set her foot on the slope and began to scale the ridge.

The vibration and the light increased as she climbed, and by the time she was halfway up the slope Indigo was bathed in reflections from the eerie radiance. As she neared the crest she went more carefully, keeping her body pressed flat to the rock where she could. She didn't know how close to the ridge the sentries might be stationed, and was anxious not to risk betraying her presence by an incautious sound or movement. The sharply etched silhouette of her goal came nearer, nearer... then her groping hands reached the crest, and slowly, breathlessly, Indigo raised her head above the edge of the ridge.

Searing green light erupted in her face and she jerked back with an involuntary gasp, turning her head away as the brilliance swamped her vision. She covered her eyes with one hand to protect them, and through the latticework of her fingers saw her hand, the arm beyond it, the rock before her, shiningwith cold, green fire that sparkled with motes like silvery dust. Her skin tingled; she risked allowing her hand to slide slowly down her face, letting her vision gradually grow accustomed to the incredible radiance , .. and at last she was able to look, for the first time, into the Charchad Vale.

She couldn't move, couldn't utter a sound as her senses strove to a.s.similate what her eyes took in. The valley was like a gigantic fumarole, a vast well that plunged giddyingly down into the bowels of the earth-and from the well's depths a t.i.tanic, monstrous incandescence blasted into the sky, bleaching the valley walls to green-white skeletons, hurling its terrible radiance up and out into the night. Grisly shadows shifted on the far cliffs, beams of nacreous color that mocked the mine searchlights played at random through the huge, shimmering s.p.a.ces. And far down, where the incredible light collapsed into a roaring, strobic inferno, she thought she glimpsed nightmarish shapes moving through the maelstrom with an ominous and implacable purpose.

Indigo clutched at the uneven rock. As if the sun itself had fallen to Earth. Jasker's words came unbidden to her mind and she felt her teeth start to chatter uncontrollably. She couldn't tear her gaze away from the vale; her skin tingled with heat and cold together and all she could do was stare and stare at the appalling scene laid out before her.

It was an abomination. An aborted nightmare, a cancer on the face of the world and on the body of the Earth Mother. And Quinas and his ilk worshiped this monstrosity, reveled in its power, adored it...

Heat flared in her head, the white heat of renewed rage as the feelings that had eaten at her soul since Chrysiva's death flooded back in double measure. She didn't fear what lay in the Charchad Vale.

Aszareel, the demon, whatever the name or nature of the misbegotten power that had conjured this horror to life, she was its equal and more. Indigo clenched her jaw, bringing the chattering under iron control. She felt blood l.u.s.t, a wild and eager awakening of a killer instinct that drove deep into her gut. A thousand curses on the cowards and the whimperers whose resolve had failed them. She would not fail.

She would face the demon of Charchad, and the demon would die. For Chrysiva and all the others, it would die.

Movement on the periphery of her vision alerted her. She jerked back, pressing her body hard to the rock and unconsciously showing her teeth in a vulpine snarl. The ghastly light played over her hands, etching the bones, so that for a moment she looked to her own eyes like a living skeleton; she ignored the phenomenon and cautiously turned her head a little to the left.

Two figures moved along a narrow ledge a short way below her vantage point. They were dim and shapeless in the glare, and until they drew closer-which, at their laconic pace, would take some minutes-it would be impossible to make them out in clear detail. But it seemed a logical a.s.sumption that these were the sentries of which Quinas had spoken.

A broad, savage grin spread across her face. She drew back, moving as quickly and lithely as a snake until her head was below the summit of the ridge, then twisted about and unslung her crossbow, setting a bolt into place and drawing back the string. She could shoot, reload, and shoot again in seconds, and Charchad acolytes died as surely as any other mortal creatures. Only two guards: they would be easy pickings. And when they were gone, nothing would impede her.

She writhed forward once more and peered over the crest. The two guards were closer now, so close that she could discern their true shapes. And her heart almost stopped beating, for whatever else they might have been, they weren't human.

Once, perhaps when they were dragged squalling from their mothers' wombs, they had had the potential to grow into men; but the Charchad had warped that potential into something so far beyond humanity that Indigo's stomach turned over with shocked revulsion. They still clung to the basic human structure of two legs, two arms, one head; but the grip was precarious, for they bore a closer resemblance to the walking fetuses of some gruesome troll than to anything remotely mortal. Dead, parchment-thin skin was stretched taut over their naked and outsized skulls; slack mouths filled with brown fangs drooled over jowls that swung bloatedly above torsos as fleshless and flaccid as the corpses of rotting fish. And from their stunted arms and legs grew six-fingered appendages tipped with broken, blackened claws that sc.r.a.ped and scrabbled on the rock as they heaved their misshapen bodies along theledge.

Despite her dehydration, bile clogged Indigo's throat and seared her tongue with a taste of rusting metal. She couldn't continue to look at the grotesque sentries: not caring about range or timing, she shut one eye and sighted along the crossbow, aiming quickly, oblivious to which of the two shambling figures was the better target, and fired.

Recoil hammered against her arm. The string sang a murderous note, and the steel bolt slammed into the face of the nearer of the guards. He-it-screamed, the sound horribly reminiscent of a slaughtered pig, and, even as his companion shuffled about in confused chagrin, pitched from the ledge and plunged into the coruscating light and into oblivion.

Feverishly, Indigo fumbled for a second bolt. Her hands felt like bears' paws, clumsy and uncoordinated, but at last she got the bolt home and swung the bow around to aim at the remaining sentry, who was still turning and turning in bewilderment on the ledge. She drew back the string, hearing her own breath rasping in her ears, dragged back the string- And something struck her a giddying blow on the back of her skull.

She opened her mouth to cry out in pain and protest, but no sound came. Instead there was a huge vortex of nausea that rushed at her from nowhere, making the surrounding scene start to spin like a mad carousel. The crossbow clattered on the rocks and Indigo rolled over, limbs losing coordination and Mailing like a young child unexpectedly pitched off balance. She saw faces above her, swimming and indistinct like dream images, and felt an irrational storm of indignation. Then something that felt like fire and ice together cracked out of the darkness and tore into her face like the sting of a monstrous bee, and she pa.s.sed out.

"Wake her."