His first irrational fear that someone or something had been shadowing them through the maze of tunnels died, but was instantly replaced by another foreboding. In my mind, Grimya had said. Was it possible that the wolf had picked up some psychic scent of danger?

Clinging to his precarious hold and ignoring the feet that his palms were scorching, Jasker said urgently. "Try to hear it again, Grimya. Try!"

"I... cannot...." She shook her head violently as though trying to free herself from some invisible a.s.sailant, and backed a pace, her body quivering. "It will not c-come... no. Wait. It..." And suddenly she raised her gaze to him again and this time her eyes were filled with fear. "It is Indigo! Jas-ker, it is her voice! She is trr-rying to call to me!"

Jasker felt as though the blood in his veins had been driven out by a flood of icy water. It wasn't possible: not unless- "Listen again!" His voice cracked on the last syllable, and it took a great effort to drag himself back into any semblance of cohesion. "What is she saying? What?"

"I don't know! I c-c-cannot hear her clearly; it is as if..." Words failed Grimya; she yipped in distress, then resorted desperately to her first warning. "Something is wrrrong!"

The spell that had shackled Indigo to obsession and mania must have broken, shattering the barriers she had created between herself and Grimya and allowing their telepathic link to be reestablished. But the link was flawed, and Grimya had been unable to interpret it with any coherence.

Revelation came as sharply as a knife in the gut. Only one thing could have released Indigo from Nemesis's thrall; and the stink of the air, the shifting light, the distant whisperings of Old Maia, were suddenly no more than a remote backdrop to the sick fear that clogged Jasker's mind.

"Grimya, listen to me." He tried to keep his voice calm, aware of how easily the she-wolf's distress-and his own-could erupt into panic. "We have very little time left. We must go on, and quickly.

Follow me-and if you love Indigo, don't be afraid of what you're about to see!"

She gave him an agonized look that negated any further need for words; then her claws scrabbled on the rock as she bounded toward the slope.

They completed the climb in breathless, scrambling chaos. Jasker forced himself not to think beyond the next precarious handhold, but, like a black litany, he constantly and silently cursed his own complacency. He had known that time was running against them, yet he had paid no more than lip service to the urgency of their cause. Now, awareness of every minute wasted, every second squandered, drove him like a predator on the heels of its victim, until, with a gasp that almost emptied his lungs, he dragged his body the last few feet to the top of the slope.

As his head came level with the opening, light flared into his face and a stench of hot sulfur blasted through the gap. Jasker didn't pause, but thrust his body into the narrow egress and forced himself through.

His senses were suddenly and violently a.s.sailed from all directions as the sounds, the heat, the smells, the taste of ancient, molten minerals on his tongue combined in a single a.s.sault. Unconsciously, Jasker had shut his eyes tightly as he writhed into the opening; he didn't want to look, needed to preserve his last defense. But then he felt Grimya's lithe form beside him as she, too, wriggled through the gap: and he heard her shocked whimper as, unprepared, she saw what he had not yet dared to face.To falter now would be the act of a coward. And with an abrupt surge of bitterness, Jasker knew that cowardice had stood for too long between himself and his duty.

Ranaya, Mother of Magma, Lady of Flame, forgive my weakness and grant me Your blessing! He uttered the litany with silent desperation, as a condemned man might shout wordlessly to the heavens when all earthly hope was gone.

He opened his eyes.

*CHAPTER*XIV*.

On his map he had dubbed it simply "the heart," for it defied all rational attempts at greater definition.

When Ranaya had given birth to the eldest of her three daughters, in a t.i.tanic blast of fire and smoke and magma that shook the surrounding land to its roots, the power of that first eruption had ripped like a giant fist through millions of tons of rock as the forces pent under the earth's crust sought an outlet. The mountain's core had melted in the onslaught, and as the shattering bolt of energy punched upward to spectacular freedom it tore a huge, vertical shaft through the mountain, an aorta from the molten heart of Old Maia.

No artist in his worst nightmares could have imagined the vista that greeted Jasker and Grimya as they emerged from the tunnel and onto the network of twisted ledges that formed the walls of the vast fumarole. Above them those walls soared dizzyingly upward, pitted with vaulted arches that had formed from the solidifying rock as the volcano settled back into quiescence. Mineral veins, fused by unimaginable heat and pressure, formed shimmering bridges between the vaults; pyroxenite and magnet.i.te and hornblende in a vast spiderweb of sullenly shimmering colors that vibrated with the eldritch echoes, far louder here with no rubble to m.u.f.fle them, of the random, burning air currents that hooted and soughed among their tracery.

Jasker's fingers were buried in Grimya's fur, clenching as he strove to drag himself back from the terror into which his flailing senses threatened to plunge him. He could feel the vast, hot drafts that sighed up from unimaginable depths like the exhalations of a sleeping t.i.tan, and he fought back an insane, vertiginous impulse to launch himself out from the ledge and into those enormous winds, to be carried on their tide and soar among the glittering webs overhead. He sank to his knees, the prayers that he had silently rehea.r.s.ed for this moment forgotten, and his free hand clutched at the hot rock wall as he battled, or so it seemed, with every muscle in his body to force himself to look down.

A huge, dim spectrum of light opened before him as his gaze turned at last into the depths of the shaft. Quiet, orange fire shot through with tongues of white heat and the grimmer, deeper reds of smoldering magma, rising from a place where solidity had no meaning, where heat and flame and the slow shift of molten elements were the only laws that governed. He was looking into the deepest core of Old Maia, through her bones and her sinews to her eternally beating heart. And in his own bones, as he gazed down into that unhuman place, Jasker heard the muted, thundering, roaring undertone that was the raw voice of his G.o.ddess.

The rock wall had burned his palm. He realized it when physical sensation sliced through the trance into which he had fallen, and he withdrew Tiis hand and stared at it, for a moment not comprehending the significance of the reddened skin and the swelling blisters at the base of each finger.

As comprehension returned he thought instantly of Grimya and turned to see her beside him, trembling with pain, her paws braced and her jaws gaping wide as she panted desperately.

"Jas-ker..." Her voice cracked as she struggled to speak to him. "I-c-cannot breathe. I am...

afraid. And I... h... hurt!"

"Great Mother..." He whispered the words so that the echoes wouldn't come shouting discordantly back, and reached into his sack to pull out a hide cloak that he'd packed among his supplies. Folded beneath her, it would offer the she-wolf at least some measure of protection from the heat. And water... they must both drink, before the supply he carried evaporated away, and hastily he unslung the skin. He'd brought no dish, but was able to pour enough into Grimya's mouth to slake theworst of her thirst. When she was done, he held the skin to his own lips-then paused as with abrupt, intense clarity he realized that he had been about to commit a sacrilege.

He had reached a turning point. This was the moment for which he had been preparing for so long, when the diverse threads of his entire life intertwined at last into one single strand. His early years in Vesinum; his growth to manhood and the discover that he had been called to a vocation; his marriage and the brief, sweet joy it had granted him; the grisly death of his wife; the inexorable rise of Charchad-all those disparate events had been leading him to this one place and this one chance.

He thought of Indigo, shackled to a yoke that he, in the unceasing torment of his latter years, understood all too well, and ready to pay any price to free herself from that torture. Could he do less than she had done? Jasker didn't need to answer his own question, for in this instant of revelation he believed he saw the purpose for which the supernal hand of Ranaya had drawn together the tangled skeins of their linked destinies.

Lady of Flame, Mother of Magma, Sister of the Burning Sun, To drink now would be to fail Her, for it would spurn the element to which his existence was dedicated. He must trust to Her power and Her strength, for if hope still existed, She would take it and shape it and give it life.

Grimya's eyes flashed gold with shock as Jasker threw his head back and laughed, a wild, joyous peal that the hot winds s.n.a.t.c.hed and flung up into the shaft of the great fumarole to ring through the vaulted network. The sorcerer's hand clamped on the waterskin and he hurled it out over the depths, watching it turn and spin, a speck on the shuddering air, spiraling into a slow fall, sizzling as it dropped and water flashed into steam, into atoms, into nothing, as the G.o.ddess of the volcanoes took Her sacrifice and transformed it into fire.

Jasker laughed again, and Grimya saw a shivering bolt of brilliance sear from him to hang above the giant shaft. Light exploded into the form of a glittering salamander that spat scarlet fire and shrilled a supernatural challenge to the singing, echoing vault. A second elemental sprang into being at its side, and a third, shimmering in the pulsing light from the fumarole. A blue-white fire cord had appeared in the sorcerer's hands; he held it taut, his hands smoldering, then turned to the terrified she-wolf at his side.

"Grimya." Jasker's voice was unnaturally calm, but she heard the undercurrent of pure madness cracking through the facade. His eyes seemed to stare through her, into another world. "You must find Indigo again, and link your mind with hers. You must become the medium through which I channel my power, and between us we must give that power to her. Do you understand?"

A long, convulsive shudder racked Grimya's body. "I... under-stand," she whispered hoa.r.s.ely.

"Help me, Grimya. When the power begins to rise, I may not be able to control it. Don't fail me, little wolf-find Indigo quickly, and pray that she can hear you!"

The cord in his hands flared lividly as he turned back to face the fumarole, and the salamanders dancing in the air above them gave voice to a wild cry. Ears flat to her head, sides heaving as she panted with a mixture of pain and fear, Grimya shut her eyes and struggled to direct her mind toward Indigo. Her consciousness fled the shaft, fled through the tunnels and over the rocks and slopes of Old Maia, searching, seeking, and suddenly she felt the quivering surge of another, distant consciousness flicker briefly across her path. She tensed, concentrating harder, and the sensation came again, stronger this time but distorted, as though it had lost the ability to focus.

Indigo! Her silent mental projection blended in her head with the deep humming emanating now from Jasker's throat as the sorcerer began his conjuration. Hot light flared against Grimya's eyelids and slowly the humming began to change to vibrating, long-drawn-out words.

Indigo! Grimya cried again. Hear me! Hear me!

Far below them, a deep and distant rumbling answered Jasker's insistently chanting voice. The salamanders started to sing a counterpoint, in an octave so high that even Grimya could barely hear it, and frantically the she-wolf strove to capture and hold the elusive thread of Indigo's awareness that trembled just beyond her reach.

Indigo! She flung every last fraction of energy her mind could muster into the call, her body writhing with the strain of effort. And suddenly a wall seemed to collapse before her, and a great surge of fear and rage and desperation smashed into her consciousness from outside, hurling her thoughts intochaos.

In the heart of Old Maia, thunder shouted with a huge, grim voice. Jasker stood with arms upraised, his body wreathed by blue-white brilliance as the fire cord blazed in his hands. Below him, the orange light was beginning to change to deep, furious crimson. The temperature was rising, wind blasting through the shaft and roaring among the shining network of ore veins, drowning the sorcerer's litany as Ranaya's ancient energies started to surge within him.

And Grimya, unaware, her mind locked with and lost in the mind of Indigo, howled across the distance that separated them as in that moment she saw what her friend had come to and what she faced.

We are too late!

When they reached the end of the pa.s.s, Indigo could only stare in dull stupefaction at the great gates that barred any further progress. The line of captives shuffled to a halt but she instinctively tried to stumble on, her reflexes numbed to unquestioning acceptance of the seemingly endless walk; as the chains at her ankles tautened an overseer saw her, shouted an angry order to stop, and the thong of a whip cracked across her unprotected breast. She didn't feel the pain, only blinked like an animal waking slowly from hibernation and fell back into line.

How long had it taken them to shamble to this final rendezvous? Her sense of time was in ruins; it might have been minutes or hours since that last glimpse of Quinas's triumphant face in the torchlight, and recollections of all she had seen and heard since then were no more than a jumble of random images in her head. She remembered a wide road whose surface seemed to be covered with ashes that the prisoners' feet kicked up into filthy clouds at every step, and she had seen a sliding, oily turbulence that she knew must be the river as it ran alongside the track. Then there had been a terrible, thundering sound, growing louder and confusing her until it resolved into the roaring of the great smelting furnaces past which the road was taking them. She had felt the heat of their ma.s.sive fires and had seen the clouds of steam rolling from the cooling pits to thicken and saturate the darkness. There had been men moving in the hot, smog-filled turmoil, ant figures dwarfed by their surroundings; those who saw the condemned creatures pa.s.sing by had quickly averted their gazes.

Then as the furnaces fell behind, the valley had begun to narrow until there were no more buildings, no more machines, no more men. The ash road petered out and they trudged instead through a steep pa.s.s that climbed into the surrounding mountains between two high peaks. Now, the only light was the cold green radiance that filled the sky overhead, creating shifting, unnatural shadows on the rocks. An overseer's yelled imprecation to hasten the prisoners on echoed bizarrely, making Indigo think for a moment that other voices were shouting down at them from the high cliffs. Then something huge and dark and angular loomed out of the night ahead, and they were at the end of their road.

The gates, thirty feet tall or more, were slung across the pa.s.s on ma.s.sive hinges hammered into the rock. They had been in place no more than four years, but already their iron surfaces were blackened and corroded, the metal eaten by the polluted air. The bar that held them shut would have withstood almost any onslaught from the far side, and as the overseers strode forward to wrestle the bar from its supports Indigo's damaged mind realized for the first time what must lie beyond.

Very slowly she turned her head-she was just capable of exerting a little control over her muscles-and looked at the prisoner beside her. He was staring at the gates with what appeared to be a mixture of awe and resignation; his mouth gaped slackly and a slow drool of spittle ran unheeded down his chin. Beyond him one other man also gazed at the gates; the rest concentrated their attention fixedly on the ground beneath their feet. No one moved, no one uttered the smallest sound of fear or protest.

A metallic crash that rang deafeningly between the cliff walls heralded the sound of the bar falling.

As the noise faded back toward silence the gates creaked ominously, and Indigo felt a responsive shiver strike at the base of her spine. She wasn't frightened-the drug had rendered her incapable of any such depth of feeling-but for a moment only, unease had moved like a worm within her.

A heavy clank, the echoes more subdued this time but still enough to startle her, and the gates began to swing back. A thin, vertical line of furious green brilliance appeared, widening rapidly until she was forced to look away; then she felt a tug on the shackles and heard the slither of loose stone under thepressure of feet as the captives began to move toward the entrance and the grim valley beyond.

"Not you!"

A hand clamped on her upper arm, hauling her back as, too numb to reason or argue, Indigo would have shuffled in the wake of her fellow prisoners. She looked uncomprehendingly into the face of one of the guards, who had interposed himself between her and the men. He was smiling. She didn't understand.

"Eager, isn't she?" Another of the guards came toward her, unclipping a heavy pair of cutters that hung from the belt at his waist.

"She'll have her turn. But not with this miserable crew of gut worms." The first overseer fingered his Charchad amulet, then gestured impatiently. "Hurry up with those; I don't want to leave the gate open any longer than I have to."

His companion crouched down, and metal snapped as he cut the chains that bound her to the other captives. She was pushed roughly out of the way, lost her balance, and fell, grazing her elbow as she hit the ground. As she struggled dizzily to sit up, she saw the overseers herding the line of men toward the shimmering s.p.a.ce between the gates. Cold radiance flooded over them, haloing them in bitter green light; one-the man to whom she had been next in line-hesitated for a moment, looking back, and she couldn't judge whether his expression was one of pity or pleading. Then the pa.s.s rang to the slamming of the gates behind the last man, and they were gone.

Echoes faded, and suddenly the night seemed unnervingly quiet. The mountains had m.u.f.fled the racket of the mines to nothing more than a faint, dreamlike murmur in the far distance, and the pa.s.s was still. Indigo hadn't attempted to climb to her feet, but simply sat where she had fallen, staring at the overseers as they turned back from the gate.

There were only three of them. She hadn't registered that fact before, but now, as the information filtered through to her mind, she wondered why the prisoners had accepted their fate so stoically. Had they chosen to fight, their guards would have been hopelessly outnumbered; yet they had made not the smallest protest, but had walked into the Charchad Vale like uncomprehending sheep to the slaughterer's blade. What would become of them now? she wondered. Would they die, swiftly, brutally, before the valley's sickness could worm its way into their bodies? Or would they wander in that green, nightmare world until the flesh rotted on their bones and they became what Chrysiva had been turning into before a crossbow bolt ended her suffering?

At the thought of Chrysiva, Indigo's mouth twitched. She couldn't help the reflex, nor the peculiar sensation that followed on its heels and made her want to speak. But the words she sought eluded her.

Earlier, before the Charchad acolytes had forced her to drink their filthy concoction, she knew that she had had a dreadful revelation about the events that had led her to her present predicament, but now she couldn't rally her powers of reasoning sufficiently to call it back. Was it failure that she dreaded; failure in some great task or aspiration? She thought so, but she couldn't recall the nature of what she had set out to do. And she didn't remember why it should have mattered so much.

Boots sc.r.a.ped on rock, and the small sound made Indigo realize that she had almost fallen into a stupefied trance. Now her eyes refocused, and she saw one of the overseers standing over her. His companions lolled against the cliff wall, watching with jaded interest.

"Well, now." A metal-tipped toe prodded her knee; she flinched, but the reflex was slow. "Still in the land of limbo, eh?" He reached into his shin and his hand closed around something in an inner pocket.

Indigo couldn't see what it was.

"Any last requests before you leave us?"

One of the other men uttered a snort of laughter. "She's young enough and handsome enough," he called out. 'Til give you a wager I know what she'd like before she goes!"

For a moment, speculation flickered in the overseer's eyes. He looked Indigo up and down, his gaze dwelling for some while on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and groin. Then he shook his head.

"It isn't worth it. We've all got wives at home who know how to please us and how to be grateful. This one wouldn't be grateful, and where's the pleasure in that? Besides, she's a foreigner. Never know what you'll catch from foreigners. No: we'll follow Quinas's orders and leave it at that." Heweighed in a clenched fist the small object he'd taken from his pocket, then added, "You know, I almost feel sorry for her."

"Sorry?" Casually, one of the other men pushed himself away from the cliff and sauntered toward them. "Why, for the blessing of Charchad?"

"Like I said, she's a foreigner. Try to show a foreigner the light and they won't see it; we know that." He shrugged. "Seems a waste, that's all."

His companion was now standing at his side, and leaned to spit inches from Indigo. "You're getting old and soft, Piaro. Heresy has to be punished, remember? That's what Charchad tells us." He laid a hand on Piaro's arm, a comradely gesture, but it carried an uneasy hint. "For your own sake and your family's, don't ever forget it."

"I'm not about to." Then Piaro shook off some private thought. "The others will have been taken down by now. Let's get this over with, and we can all go back to Vesinum on the morning wagon and get some sleep." He dropped to a crouch, and for the first time as his hand unclenched Indigo saw that he held a small metal phial. The stopper came out with a faint, unpleasant sound and Piaro nodded to his companion.

"You might have to hold her chin while she swallows it. Don't let it spill; it's the only one we've got."

They expected her to try to fight, but she didn't, for she felt desperately thirsty and saw no reason not to take a drink if it was offered to her. She felt disappointed when, instead of water, she tasted acute sweetness that cloyed on her tongue; but it was better than nothing and she swallowed convulsively.

"What will that do?" Piaro's companion asked.

"It's an antidote to the first drug she was given, that's all I was told." Piaro straightened and put the empty phial away. "Quinas wants her to have all her wits about her when she goes through."

"Why?"

"How should I know? Maybe it's a last lesson for her." His hands were sweaty; he wiped them on his thighs, then reached down again to take hold of one of Indigo's arms. "Come on. No sense in hanging around needlessly, and the other side'll be waiting."

The world lurched as Indigo was pulled to her feet, and she thought confusedly: An antidote?

She was being hurried along between the two men, so fast that her feet could barely sc.r.a.pe the ground in any semblance of rhythm. The gates loomed before her, and the third man was moving to haul on the great handle.

Light. Green and hideous and so brilliantly livid that she gasped and tried to shake her head in protest-she was being propelled toward it, and her body was beginning to tingle with the cramps of returning sensation.

A voice impinged on her mind: Piaro's. "Wonder what happened to the dog?"

"What-dog?" His companion was panting with effort; paralyzed by the cramps, Indigo had suddenly become a dead weight.

"I heard she had a dog with her. Before, in Vesinum."

Dog? Indigo thought. And something climbed out of her confused memory to grasp hold of her....

A grunt. "It won't last long around here. Fresh meat that'll be, for some lucky b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

Grimya...

The second overseer uttered an imprecation as Indigo's paralysis abruptly released her and she started to writhe in her captors' grip. "By the light, the b.i.t.c.h is coming out of it already! Shift her, Piaro; she's trying to get away-" And he swore again as Indigo screwed her head round and tried to bite him. It was a feeble effort and her teeth snapped on air; a second later a hand struck her face and she subsided.

"Leave it." Piaro spoke sharply as the other man made to hit her again. "Just get her through, and get those d.a.m.ned gates shut!"

She made one last effort to fight them as the fast-acting antidote surged through her, but it was too late and too ill coordinated. A wall of blistering radiance struck her full on as the gates reared high overhead-then she was hurled forward and felt herself falling and rolling down a steep slope, her breaths.n.a.t.c.hed from her lungs in an inarticulate cry of protest as the gates of the Charchad Vale slammed with a shuddering crash at her back.

For a while-she couldn't tell how long, and when she tried to count the pa.s.sing seconds her judgment collapsed into confusion-Indigo lay utterly still. Her limbs were tingling in the wake of the cramp; instinct told her that control was returning swiftly to her body but she didn't dare test it. And as the effects of the drug were purged from muscles and sinews, so her mind, too, was clearing, and with it her memory.

For one moment she was consumed by a red-hot surge of fury at herself for the blind stupidity that had led her to this. But the feeling subsided as she realized that recrimination would achieve nothing, and in the wake of the anger came an extraordinary sense of calm. What was done was done; the slamming of the giant gates behind her had been a final confirmation of the futility of regret, and she had a simple choice. She could abandon the last of her hopes, or she could face what lay before her and, while she still had life and strength, fight it with all the power she possessed.

Indigo didn't know whether she had the courage to practice the brave words she was preaching, but she tried to comfort herself with the thought that if her resolve failed-as she feared it would-it would make not one whit of difference to her fate. She had nothing to lose now. Quinas had dealt his last card.

If only she could have made contact with Grimya- No. She mustn't consider that thought. In the Charchad Vale she was beyond the reach of Grimya or Jasker; even had they been able to come to her they could do nothing to help her, and she would not be the instrument of their deaths as well as her own. She was alone now. And there was only one direction in which she could go.

Indigo raised her head from the uneven ground and opened her eyes to stare into the valley of Charchad.

She was better prepared than she had been the first time, but still nothing could soften the surge of shock and sick horror as the huge, incandescent vista opened before her. From the ridge, her first vantage point, the vale had appalled her; but this... she felt as though her rib cage were tightening within her flesh, threatening to crush her heart as she stared down and down into the vast pit of light. Monstrous waves of radiance pulsed up from the depths to sear the valley sides and drench her in green fire. Her skin ached, as though she were bathing in a solution of some strange, thin acid; her eyes were streaming, and as she stared helplessly at the far wall of the cliff where shadows stalked and shifted and made grisly patterns, she realized how helplessly insignificant she was in this place, a tiny, lost speck against the t.i.tanic backdrop.

Abruptly the world seemed to lose all reality, and dizzy nausea gripped her. The scale was too vast, the power too great-she couldn't stand against this, couldn't- A stray sound, closer by, impinged on the distant, chaotic roaring of Charchad and stabbed through the thrall of panic that threatened to smash her resolve beyond repair. Indigo's body jerked spastically and she scrabbled to her hands and knees, crouching like a nervous animal as her watering eyes tried to re-focus.

Dim, light-blasted shapes were moving on the slope below her. For a moment she thought they must be the men who had been forced through the Charchad gate, wandering aimlessly in the deadly radiance-but as she blinked water from her eyes and her vision momentarily cleared a little, she realized that she was wrong. There were only two figures, and there was nothing aimless in their movements as they climbed the slope toward her. Reason tried to deny it, but instinct told Indigo that she was their objective.