"Indeed you do! You gave me the impression that you were a civilized man. I see now that you're no better than a maggot!" She pointed to the woman, who still lay on the ground and was weeping quietly. "Help her to her feet. I believe she has something to say to you."

A cool smile made Quinas's mouth twitch. "For your own sake, saia, I would strongly recommend that you stop attempting to interfere in the business of others. In fact, I must insist on it." He reached forward to take hold of her arm and push her out of his path, and she brought the knife flashing up to hover before his face.

"Touch me and I'll cut your entrails out, you snake-sp.a.w.ned butcher!"

Quinas stayed his hand, but his face grew dangerous. He blinked; again, the crimson lenses came down briefly over his eyes, and the renewed shock of his deformity momentarily threw Indigo's concentration. The knife wavered-and three of the Charchad acolytes pounced on her. She yelled in surprise, then the yell cut off in a whoop of expelled breath as a fist drove into her stomach. Another pulled her hair, jerking her head around, and she lost her footing, falling to the ground under a rain of kicks and blows.

Indigo! Grimya howled and leaped at her friend's a.s.sailants, only to be kicked back to roll yelping on the flags. Through eyes that watered with pain Indigo saw the she-wolf crouch for the kill, saw a blade in the hand of one of the acolytes- "No, Grimya! Stay!"

Grimya whimpered, frustrated but instinctively bound to obey, and hands hauled Indigo roughly to her feet. She doubled over, struggling not to complete her humiliation by vomiting in full view of the crowd, and saw Quinas's feet planted squarely before her.

"Very prudent, saia; and as well for you that your dog is obedient." He looked up, nodded to his followers. "Release her. I don't think she's in a condition to cause any further trouble."

The hands fell away, one giving Indigo a last, painful pinch, and she slumped to her knees, toosick and dizzy to stand upright unaided.

"She is a foreigner," Quinas said with withering contempt, "and as such, her ignorance is to be pitied rather than punished. But she will learn the folly of her ways, brothers and sisters. Charchad will see to that."

She might have blacked out for a moment; Indigo couldn't later be sure. When she opened her eyes again she was no longer surrounded, and Grimya was at her side, anxiously trying to lick her face.

Indigo! I should have stopped them, I should have torn out their throats! I failed you!

"No... no." She started to shake her head but thought better of it. One kick must have connected directly with the back of her skull.... Her knife lay on the flags before her; shakily she retrieved it, then pushed a begrimed strand of hair from her eyes and looked up.

Quinas and his companions were gone. People in the crowd were staring at her; as she met their gazes they turned their backs, shuffling away to give her a wide berth, and any thought she had of asking someone to help her to her feet died. As with Quinas's earlier victims, they would do nothing to aid her.

The raucous music had stopped. The flames of the pyres still stained the scene but there was no more screaming now: the fires had done their work and the festival of Charchad was over. Indigo looked about her for the woman she had attempted to champion, but she was nowhere to be seen, and after a few moments more she risked struggling to her feet. The ground seemed to dip and sway beneath her, but with an effort she managed to stumble the few steps to the hostelry door and make her way inside.

The taproom was, thankfully, empty, and with Grimya an anxious shadow at her heels she climbed slowly and painfully up to her room. The worst of her nausea was pa.s.sing, but when she gingerly fingered her skin, she found several shallow grazes, and there were painful patches on her cheek and jaw that would form livid bruises by morning.

She eased herself onto her bed and lay down. Grimya paced the room, tail and ears twitching, still distressed. I wish I had killed them! the she-wolf said. They have hurt you- "No, Grimya; they haven't really hurt me. They could have done far worse, and there were too many of them for you to fight alone. Besides, it doesn't matter. Those poor people-what Quinas did, it was monstrous!"

That one called Quinas is a madman-I could smell his sickness. Indigo, is he the source of the evil here? Is he the demon?

Indigo hadn't considered the possibility that the evil force she sought might be embodied in a single human being, but Grimya's suggestion had an ugly logic. She put her hand to the bag around her neck and drew the lodestone out to look at it.

"It's quiescent." Chagrin colored her voice. "But it still points northward."

When the man Quinas went away, he went south from here. I was wrong: it cannot be him.

"Perhaps not... but he's a part of it, Grimya." Unwanted images of the pyres and their struggling victims rose in Indigo's mind and she focused desperately on her own hands in an effort to blot the memory out. "The heart of the Charchad-whatever it is-lies in the north. And Quinas holds a key to it, though maybe not the only key." She shivered, glanced at the window then away again. "I will have revenge on that man. Not only for myself, but for the ones who died tonight."

Grimya started to reply, but suddenly stopped, looked toward the door, and uttered a soft growl. Someone comes.

A heavy footfall sounded on the landing. Indigo tensed, then started up as without any preamble the door opened and the landlord of the House of Copper and Iron walked into the room.

Hot color rose to Indigo's cheeks. "How dare you intrude on me without so much as knocking!

What do you think you're about?"

"Save your fine indignation, saia." The landlord's obsequiousness was gone, and he uttered the courtesy t.i.tle with heavy irony. "I won't waste words. You're no longer welcome under my roof, and you'll oblige by leaving as soon as daylight comes."

"What?"

"You heard me well enough. We're a peaceable town, and we don't take kindly to outsiders coming here and trying to make trouble.""Trouble?" Indigo echoed, incredulous. "You witnessed murder in that square outside, and now you have the audacity to accuse me of making trouble?" She stood up, her whole body shaking with fury and frustration. "What's the matter with you people? Are you so afraid of that piece of offal who calls himself mine overseer that-"

"And I'll have no besmirching of our good brother Quinas!" The landlord shouted to drown her words, and she saw beads of sweat on his forehead. "You're not welcome here, d'you understand? Take your dirty outland ways and your dirty outland animal, and be gone from my house by morning!" His voice dropped and he took several deep breaths, chest heaving. He would not, Indigo noted bitterly, meet her gaze directly. "Go, woman. Or you'll be given more cause for repentance than you've had tonight!"

On the brink of a furious retort, Indigo paused. There was no point in arguing with the man; she could gain nothing from it. Whether he was motivated by fear or by genuine loyalty to the Charchad made no difference; his was only one voice among many. She couldn't oppose the entire town.

She turned away and spoke with cold disdain. "Very well." Her purse clinked, and she threw two gold coins onto the floor. "That, I think, will cover my indebtedness for your hospitality."

"I want none of your money."

"Then you may leave it to rot where it lies, for I'll be under no obligation to the house of a craven coward."

There was a sharp silence. Then the landlord said: "Your pony will be saddled and ready at dawn," and the uneven floor shook as he slammed the door behind him.

*CHAPTER*IV*.

By midmorning, Indigo and Grimya were far enough from Vesinum for the physical, if not the psychic, stench of the Charchad festival to be gone from their nostrils. They had left under a paling dawn that hadn't yet entirely banished the nightglow from the sky, and had taken the northward road out of the town.

There had been few eyes to see them on their way. Indigo was aware of the landlord watching from an upper window of the House of Copper and Iron as she mounted the pony, but there was no one abroad in the streets, and the clatter of hooves as they moved off had been the only sound to break the early quiet. The square, too, was deserted; she had turned her face from the charred and grisly legacy of the festival and ridden away without a backward glance. Now, as the sun climbed and the heat increased to the steady intensity of a furnace, she hurried the pony on as fast as common sense allowed, anxious to put as much distance between herself and the town's horrific memories as possible.

She and Grimya had said little to each other about their experience. Words seemed inadequate; though Indigo knew nothing of the victims who had died on the Charchad's pyres, she nonetheless grieved for them. And her simmering rage still showed no sign of abating. Her mind was quieter now, but she knew herself well enough to acknowledge that it would take little to provoke her into a fit of furious railing against the Charchad and all it stood for.

She reflected, however, that as yet she still had no clear idea of what the Charchad did stand for, All she knew was the little she had seen in Vesinum, and though the events had shocked and sickened her, they had revealed nothing of the cult's origins, or of its ultimate purpose. But whatever the nature of Charchad, she had seen more than enough to convince her beyond all doubt that the cult had a direct and inextricable link with the demon she was seeking.

A huge, low wagon laden with timber and drawn by four straining oxen came rumbling toward her, and she drew the pony to the side of the dusty road to let the convoy pa.s.s. The driver gruffly thanked her, one of the two mounted outriders saluted and smiled, and while she waited for the dust cloud of this pa.s.sage to clear Indigo took a few moments to a.s.sess the way ahead.

She was still on the main trade route that ran alongside the river, but from her maps she knew that two or three miles on, the road met the barrier of the volcanic mountains and there turned abruptlyeastward. The red-brown peaks dominated the skyline now, sere and sunbaked and indefinably threatening; and the sky beyond the first ramparts was tinged with the sulfurous yellow pollution of the mining and smelting operations in the heart of the range. Grimya had already complained of the foul smells a.s.sailing her nostrils, and even Indigo, with her far less acute human senses, was unpleasantly aware of the taint.

She took out the lodestone and regarded it again. The tiny gold spark at its heart still pointed unwaveringly northward, and she gathered up the reins in preparation to move on. Grimya, who had flopped down in a patch of dry, withered gra.s.s, rose reluctantly to her feet. Her tongue lolled and she said tentatively, I would like to rest soon....

"It isn't far now to the mountains," Indigo looked down at her friend and smiled. "We'll find shade as soon as we can."

During the next mile, traffic on the road increased until there was a steady flow moving past them from the north. Trade caravans, supply wagons, small groups of hors.e.m.e.n, even a few dusty walkers.

No one spared more than a glance for Indigo and Grimya, and at last they reached the first foothills, and with them the junction where the road turned to cross the river and carry its traffic away into the east. A huge and ugly iron toll bridge spanned the river, flanked by rough sheds, and on both banks a number of opportunistic tinkers and small traders had set up stalls and were loudly proclaiming their wares to travelers.

Indigo reined in and looked at the scene. Her direction lay north, not east; yet it seemed that she had little choice but to follow the road, for the only way northward was by a broad, rutted track that followed the river where it vanished into the mountains-and the track was barred by tall and heavily guarded gates.

She spoke quietly to Grimya. "That must be the entrance to the mines. Without the proper doc.u.ments, those guards won't let us pa.s.s. I have the impression they don't encourage casual visitors."

Grimya's nose wrinkled and she sniffed at the heavy air. I cannot believe that anyone would want to go there without good reason.

"Nor I. But we can't dispute what the lodestone tells us." She scanned the slopes ahead of her, but saw nothing to lift her spirits. The mountains looked impa.s.sable; to either side of the mine track the volcanic rock rose in near-vertical folds where, long ago, a huge fault had developed in the land. No one in their right mind would even attempt to climb such a cliff, let alone hope to succeed. And yet if she continued on the trade road she would have little hope of finding a way into the range further on, for beyond the river the road veered further and further away from the mountains, separated from them by a pitted lava plain that no horse could traverse.

Two well-dressed riders clattered past, pushing their horses faster than any man with a spark of kindness would have done in such heat, and turned off the road to approach the mine gates. A guard intercepted them, and Indigo saw one rider wave a small metal token under the man's nose before the gates were opened and the pair spurred their horses through. She touched her tongue to lips that were dry and sore from the sun and realized that she couldn't sit indecisively here for much longer. It was only just past noon; they needed shelter of some form and a chance to rest until the day became a little cooler.

Turning her gaze from the mine track, she surveyed the landscape again-and suddenly saw something that in the sun's dazzle she had missed. Another path, so old and abandoned that it was barely discernible, which branched from the main road and meandered away westward. At first glance it appeared to end where it met the volcanic wall; but looking harder, Indigo thought she saw a fissure in the ma.s.sive folds of rock, into which the track vanished.

An old miners' road, fallen into disuse? It was possible: and it was their only chance.

She looked down at Grimya and projected a thought. Grimya-do you see that path, leading westward?

The she-wolf looked. I see it. She sensed Indigo's eagerness. Do you think it may lead to where we wish to go?

I don't know. But I have a feeling, an instinct.... Unconsciously she fingered the lodestone, and Grimya opened her jaws in a lupine grin, licking the air.If nothing else, it may bring us to some shade!

Indigo laughed. "Grimya, you're single-minded!" she said aloud. "Come, then-let's investigate, before we broil in the sun!"

She had wondered, with some trepidation, if the mine guards might challenge or impede them before they could reach the track, but it seemed that the sentries' interest extended only to anyone who set foot on the mine road itself. And the heat was taking its toll on them, too; of the four men on duty only one now braved the day while his fellows sheltered in a ramshackle hut to one side of the gates, and as Indigo and Grimya pa.s.sed by the entrance he didn't so much as look in their direction.

They turned onto the disused path, and as the cliff rose beside them Indigo felt as though she had ridden into a furnace. The sun beat against the rock face and shimmered back in stifling waves, burning all traces of moisture from the air and making the mere act of breathing a torment. The pony's head hung and it refused to move at more than a shambling walk; Grimya panted at its heels, trying to stay within its shadow, and Indigo prayed silently that she hadn't been mistaken about the path. She could bear no more than a few minutes of this.

Suddenly the she-wolf stopped and yipped a warning. Turning, Indigo saw her looking back, ears p.r.i.c.ked.

"Grimya? What's amiss?"

Something behind us-a disturbance- Were the guards alerted, and coming after them? Indigo looked for her knife, winced as her hand touched the metal of the hilt, which was hot enough to burn. But Grimya was trotting back the way they had come, and after a few moments she called back aloud, "In-digo! They are h... urting her!"

Indigo frowned, not comprehending. Then Grimya called again more urgently, and realizing that something was amiss, Indigo dismounted and ran back along the path.

From Grimya's vantage point the mine entrance was just visible-and by the gates a skirmish had broken out. A woman, screaming and pleading, was struggling to break free from the grip of two guards, while a third jabbed viciously at her with a metal stave. Shocked, Indigo recognized her as the same woman whose part she had tried to take the previous night; the one who had sought to pet.i.tion Quinas.

With a jerk that must have nearly wrenched her arm from its socket the woman broke free; but only for a moment before one of the sentries s.n.a.t.c.hed a handful of her clothing-Indigo heard the worn fabric rip-and his companion swung the heavy stave against her shoulder with stunning force. She reeled, staggered, fell; the guards caught her under the arms and dragged her clear of the gates before throwing her down in the dust at the side of the road.

Indigo stared after the three grinning men as they swaggered back to their posts. Bile rose in her throat, but she forced herself not to give way to the furious instinct that urged her to storm after them and claim retribution on the woman's behalf. She had made that mistake once before, and the odds against her were no more favorable now.

The woman, meanwhile, had tried to get to her feet, failed, and was crawling slowly and painfully toward the rock face where the abandoned path began. She reached the cliff, then collapsed against the wall, doubled over, and began to retch dryly. Indigo swore softly and, motioning to Grimya to stay back, ran toward her. As she bent to help her up the woman started and tried to shield her face with one arm, crying out incoherently.

"It's all right." Indigo caught her shoulders, steadying her. "I won't hurt you-I'm a friend. Come; you can stand, if I help you?"

Wide, terrified eyes in a pinched face stared back at her, and the woman's lip quivered. "I... I'm all right." She tried to shake Indigo's hands away, but the effort was weak. "You shouldn't touch me; I'm-"

"Hush." Indigo spoke gently but firmly. "You need to get out of the sun. Come with me." And she called over her shoulder, "Grimya, fetch the pony! I don't think she can walk more than a few steps."

Grimya hurried away and returned a few moments later with the pony's reins gripped in her teeth and the animal plodding reluctantly behind her. The sight raised a faint, dazed smile from the woman, and she didn't protest as Indigo helped her into the saddle.Grimya said to Indigo: I will go on ahead and see if the path leads to shade. She paused, then added: She is very sick, I think.

She'll recover when she has shelter, and water and food.

I'm not so sure. There is something else... ah, no matter. The she-wolf shook her head and, before Indigo could question her, turned and ran away along the path.

To Indigo's intense relief the path did not, as she had feared, end at a blank rock face. Instead, it snaked into a fissure in the cliff where two great folds of petrified lava met, and as they entered the gap the sun, blessedly, was hidden by the rising wall.

Grimya, who had explored some way into the fissure, reported that the track seemed to follow a huge fault that skirted the outer faces of the mountains; she had found no means of penetrating further into the range, but neither did the path show any sign of petering out. The canyon was also wide enough to allow them to rest in relative comfort, and Indigo spread a blanket out on the rough, pitted floor before lifting the woman down from the pony's back. Water was the most vital consideration, and she saw to it that both Grimya and the pony had their fill from her supply before she held the bottle to the woman's lips. She drank, but seemed to have difficulty in swallowing; watching her as she struggled, Indigo realized with a shock that she was far younger than at first she'd thought; barely out of her teens, in fact, though hardship had aged her prematurely. Also, her skin in places was blotched an unsightly red, and there were sores on her neck and the inner flesh of her arms; recalling Grimya's cryptic observation, Indigo wondered if the girl might have a fever to add to her troubles. But when at last she finished drinking and looked up, there was no sign of delirium in her eyes.

She laid a hand on Indigo's arm and whispered: "Th-thank you, saia."

Indigo smiled a little grimly. "I hope I've made amends for my failure to help you last night."

She was momentarily puzzled: but then her face cleared. "Of course... you were in the square-you tried to stop them from hurting me-"

"And failed, I'm afraid."

"No-you were so kind, so good-and now-" The woman coughed, and spittle ran down her chin, "I owe you so much, saia, and I can't repay you...." She twisted her hands, which were thin and work-roughened, in a strand of her own hair, and began to cry in painful, gulping sobs. There was an appalling hopelessness in the sound, and Indigo was horribly moved.

She brushed quickly at her own eyes and said, "I need no payment. Please, don't weep. Tell me your name, and why the mine guards were abusing you."

The woman couldn't answer at first, only shook her head and continued to cry. But Indigo persisted, and at last she calmed a little. Her name, she said, was Chrysiva, and she was wife to a miner-but she got no further before a fresh bout of sobbing overtook her, and amid her gasping efforts to continue Indigo caught only one word.

Charchad.

A cold worm moved within her, and she caught hold of Chrysiva's shoulders. "What has the Charchad to do with your trouble?" she asked urgently. "What have they done to you?"

Chrysiva drew a deep, shuddering breath and looked up, red-eyed and blinded by her tears.

"They took him away...."

"Your husband?"

She nodded, and bit hard on her lower lip until a bead of blood welled. "They-they said he had insulted an overseer. It was a lie, he was innocent-but they wouldn't listen; they wouldn't even let him speak! Th-they said he must be punished, and... and they sent him to Charchad!"

"Sent him to Charchad? Chrysiva, what does that mean?"

She didn't heed the question. "I have pleaded with them, I have begged them; I have tried everything, but they won't set him free!"

"Chrysiva-"

"Two months since they took him... two months and still they have no mercy! He won't live through it, I know he won't!""Chrysiva, please listen to me-"

It is no use, Grimya said sadly. She is too distressed to answer your questions. All she can think of is her sorrow.

With a sigh Indigo sat back on her heels. Grimya was right; they'd learn nothing more from Chrysiva until she had expunged the worst of her grief and was calmer. And she herself felt the need to rest; although they were out of the sun's reach, the canyon was still breathlessly hot, and they would be well advised to sleep for a few hours until the day became cooler.

Chrysiva had huddled down on the blanket, face buried in the crook of one arm. The pony was already dozing; Indigo unsaddled it, then made herself as comfortable as she could and, with Grimya beside her, settled down to sleep.

She did sleep; but dreams came to haunt her, interlaced with a dim and feverish awareness of the heat and the hard discomfort of the rock on which she lay. In the dreams she saw Fenran again, but his face was disfigured by terrible scars, skin seared and burned by a disease that raged within him and would not be checked. Indigo knew that without swift and skilled attention her lover would die, and in her nightmare she cried out for Imyssa, the wise old witch who had nursed her in childhood. But her cry only echoed uselessly through the empty halls of Carn Caille, and Imyssa did not answer. And when she turned and reached out for the jars of potions and simples that stood on a shelf beside her, they yielded only a foul black dust that vanished to nothing in her hands. And Fenran was calling her name from the bed of twisted thorn branches where he lay, and he was fading, and she couldn't help him, and he was dying-She woke with a cry that echoed in the canyon and made Grimya spring to her feet, hackles raised in alarm. Then came the familiar realization that it had been no more than a dream, and the clamminess of sweat drying on her body; then at last the rea.s.suring touch of the she-wolf's fur as she tried to give her friend some comfort.

Another of the nightmares? Grimya's question was filled with sympathy.