Louise Cooper - Indigo 06 - Avatar (2 page)

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 sure-footedly.

At last Grimya saw Indigo’s huddled, motionless figure ahead. She was lying on her side now, rivulets of water streaming all around her, and at first, Grimya saw, the men thought she must be dead. They bent over her; then she stirred and her eyelids flickered, opening to reveal a bloodshot, unseeing stare.

The older man uttered a sharp imperative before turning to the wolf, making a placating gesture as he spoke to her slowly and soothingly. The younger man lifted Indigo bodily, heaving her over his shoulder, baggage and all. Then, staggering a little under his burden, he turned about and began to plod back toward the
kemb
.

If anxiety hadn’t eclipsed all other considerations, Grimya might have thought that they made a strange procession as the
kemb
came in sight. Certainly their arrival drew attention; the dumpy woman was standing on the veranda, watching for them through the rain, and by the time they reached the steps, she had been joined by several others, all of them talking and exclaiming in astonished voices. Grimya saw another young man, a toothless grand-dame, two young women and a scattering of children among their number. They surrounded her, patting, pulling her across the veranda and in through the rattan door, where she was engulfed by curious hands and faces while her rescuers bore Indigo away. Someone was trying to wrap her in a large cloth that stank of wood ash and rancid fat. Grimya struggled, wanting only to follow the men who were taking Indigo away, but there were too many anxious faces and restraining arms and she suddenly felt too exhausted to resist. She began to tremble; then abruptly her legs gave way and she sprawled like a newborn cub. Two of the women made cooing, pitying noises, and a bowl of brackish water was pushed under her nose. She didn’t want it but she made herself lap a little so as not to seem ungrateful, while her ministrants clapped their hands in approval.

Then one of the young women knelt beside her and began to dry her fur with the rancid-smelling cloth. Grimya whined, her nostrils flaring as she searched for Indigo’s scent. She tried to get to her feet; with a soft laugh, the young woman pushed her down again, and a small child, bolder than its siblings, reached out from the press of faces and bodies to stroke her nose. Grimya didn’t have the strength left in her to protest, and she couldn’t tell them that her only concern was for her friend, so the whine died to a whimper and then into silence. She was so tired. Her eyelids drooped; the touch of the child’s hand was comforting, and others, losing their initial fear, were also reaching out to stroke her while the young woman murmured reassuringly.