Echoes

by Nathan Ravenwood

  “We're in a life or death situation right now and you want to float there musing about architecture?” Vann grunted as he went, digging his boots into the wall for purchase.

  “You are in a life or death situation, kiddo,” Rorzan said, scratching his chin as they went. “I'm already dead.” He gestured to himself. “Hence the whole blue and gaseous thing.”

  “Right,” Vann said, a bead of sweat rolling down his nose. “And how is that even possible?”

  “Now's not the time for explaining, kiddo,” Rorzan said. “That's for later. Also, what's your name? I feel incredibly patronizing just calling you kiddo.”

  Vann paused for a moment to catch his breath and secure his grip, about halfway down the banner. “Vann,” he said. “Vann Fyfe.”

  Rorzan nodded. “Pleasure, Vann.” He looked up. “You, uh, might want to go faster.”

  Vann looked up to see that one of the palace guards had found a sword and was sawing away at the banner. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered. He went faster, his arms screaming at him in protest. He was strong, but he'd never had to do something like this before.

  He reached the bottom of the banner just as there was a ripping noise from above him. Without thinking Vann let go, aiming for the flattest ground he could see. It would've been a hell of a thing to have come so far and then twist his ankle on a bad fall. He landed, stumbled once, then found his feet and took off running just as the doors to the palace opened and the guards poured out after him. His feet thunked heavily against the cobblestone pathway that led to the palace gate. The guards stationed there were moving to intercept him, spears at the ready. Their squad leader with a harp starting Singing something as his fingers flew over the instrument.

  “Two can play that game, pal,” Rorzan said. “Vann, take the pick and put your fingers here and here.” He positioned his hand on the neck of the guitar, and Vann emulated the position. “Good! Now play the chord three times and slide it down a fret each time! And aim the neck in the center of the guards!”

  Vann almost messed up, but played the three chord sequence on the run, feeling power build quickly. At the last moment he remembered Rorzan's instructions about aiming, and pointed the guitar at the center of the guards' formation, right under the leader with the harp. The power crested, and then ripped free, flowing into the ground where Vann was pointing the guitar. A second later, the ground trembled, and the guards scrambled out of the way moments before it buckled and cracked under their feet. Vann ran around the crater.

  “Good!” Rorzan said. “Now, same finger configuration and repetition, two strings lower, aim at the gate and add some Voice to this one!”

  Vann did as the ghost instructed, and got the shock of his life when a bolt of lighting zipped out of the guitar and struck the door center mass, vaporising the heavy lock. He put his shoulder down and elbowed the door open, stumbling out into the streets of Papreon.

  The city was a honeycomb near the palace, most of the buildings single story with a few exceptions that had added upper levels as the technology to do so had become available. In front of Vann was the main road that emanated from this side of the palace, a long uninterrupted stretch of cobblestone and brick that went all the way to the outer gates of the city in the distance.

  The crowd that had gathered around the palace door was already fleeing in terror, and Vann's head snapped from side to side. “Which way?” he asked Rorzan.

  The ghost pointed down the main road. “Straight down the pipe,” he said.

  “We'll never outrun the guards,” Vann said.

  “We won't have to,” Rorzan said, moving his arm to point at the corner across from the palace. There was a tavern there, and a few horses were hitched at the post outside. “Pick one.”

  “That's stealing!” Vann protested.

  “Steal or get speared, Vann,” Rorzan said. “Pretty easy choice to make.”

  One look behind him at the encroaching group of guards that were pushing their way through the palace gates was all it took for Vann to set aside his morals. He hurried over to the hitching post and clambered onto the horse at the very end, a black mare with white spots on it's muzzle. The beast whinnied in protest as it was mounted by a stranger.

  “Is now a good time to tell you that I don't know how to ride a horse?” Vann said.

  “You don't have to ride the horse then,” Rorzan said. “Though, uh, you may want to hang on. Very tightly.”

  Vann gripped the horse's reins tightly in his hands. Rorzan flitted over in front of the horse and stared it dead in the eye. His body rippled, and appeared to glow brighter for a moment, and he made a fearsome face at the mare. “Boo!”

  The horse whinnied and reared up, and Vann cursed as he almost fell off. He managed to hang on as the beast pivoted around, planted both feet on the ground, and bolted away from the tavern as a salvo of magic missiles streaked through the air where they'd been moments before.

  The panicked pace of the horse bounced Vann around in the saddle, his grip on the reigns white-knuckled as he tried to slot his feet into the stirrups. He dimly remembered that's what you were supposed to do when you rode a horse. He'd never been afforded the opportunity.

  “Yah! Keep it moving! Yah!” Rorzan said, floating behind the horse and swatting at it's rump. His head passed through the animal's hide as he did. “You okay up there Vann?”

  “As... much... as... I... can... be!” Vann replied, each word punctuated by him bouncing roughly in the saddle.

  They flew down the main road, leaving the guards in the dust behind them as they whipped past shops, inns, tailors, and instrument crafters. People stopped and stared, gaping openly as Vann blew past them on the horse.

  “Can these people see you?” Vann yelled to Rorzan over the rush of the wind in his ears.

  Rorzan floated up next to him. “Nope! Only the people – or beasts – that I want to see me can see me. It's a pretty neat trick.” He turned his head as they passed a brothel. “Oh, if only we had the time.”

  “Uh, Rorzan?”

  They were nearing the big main gate out of the city. It was twice the size of the palace one, and made of heavier metal with a sturdier lock. What complicated matters was there were many guards situated in front of it in a blockade formation, all of them with instruments at the ready.

  Rorzan growled. “So that's how the blue bloods want to play, eh? Fine. How much do you know about stringed instruments, Vann?”

  “A fair amount,” Vann answered. “I learned how to play lute when I was younger, and after... after I lost my Voice I kept up with it. I played for Yilon often while he experimented with new Songs.”

  Rorzan grinned wide, showing teeth. “Perfect, then you'll make sense of what I'm about to tell you.”

  He rattled off a complicated series of fingering positions and instructions that Vann just about followed along with. They were growing closer and closer to the roundabout in front of the door, close enough that Vann could see the light reflecting off the guard's helmets. “You're absolutely certain this will work?” Vann asked.

  “Positive!” Rorzan said. “Used the exact same chords to get myself out of a jam similar to this one. I'll tell you about it later.” His face grew more serious. “Time to shred, Vann!”

  Vann stabilized himself as best he could in the bucking saddle, squeezing the horse's sides with his legs to keep balanced. He took a deep breath, then began to play as the horse galloped into the roundabout. His fingers skittered up and down the frets, the motions feeling... instinctive. As if he'd always possessed the ability to play the sequence of notes but had just never thought to put them in the order they were or play them that quickly.

  The guards let fly with Sung magic missiles, and the heavy crossbows atop the wall fired their five-foot long quarrels just as Vann's finger tapped out the last note. He closed one eye and gritted his teeth, waiting for the pain of being struck by all the projectiles.

  None of them even got close to him.

  From
the guitar rippled a dome of white energy, charged from within by flickering arcs of magical lightning. It shot out, expanding as it went to envelop all the projectiles screaming towards Vann. The magic missiles simply vanished, and the crossbow quarrels were swatted out of the air like flies. The energy washed over the guards, bowling them over and giving them enough of a magic shock to leave them all stunned.

  “By the Firsts,” Vann said.

  “Focus,” Rorzan said. “Blast that door open, Vann!”

  Vann played the chords from earlier, sending another bolt of lightning at the metal doors. It struck home, blowing the doors open with a bang that sounded like it echoed for miles around. “Yes!” Rorzan hooted as they ran out of the city's confines. “We're running free, baby!”

  Despite everything, Vann felt himself smiling a little bit. It was only now settling in that, after years of being unable to harness magic, in the past thirty minutes he'd done it half a dozen times. The giddiness was heady. “Where to next?” he asked Rorzan.

  “What? Oh, right!” Rorzan pointed to the northeast. “Follow the road as best you can that way.”

  “Okay,” Vann said. “But could you, um... make the horse move again?”

  “Sure. Turn her to the right.” Vann gently nudged the horse's reigns to the side. Rorzan dropped into the horse's field of view. “Your father was a gelding!” he yelled.

  The horse almost bucked Vann off again, but he held on as it reared, turned, and took off to the northeast. “Thank... you... ow! Ow!” Vann yelped as the saddle slammed into his backside repeatedly.

  “Give it a little bit and your ass will be numb enough that that won't be a problem,” Rorzan snickered, floating alongside Vann as the horse booked it along the road. “Now, as we go, I'm sure you have questions.”

  “Many!”

  Rorzan held up a finger. “And I will get to your questions after you answer mine. I've been stuck in a room under a library for the past few centuries. I'm a little out of the loop on what's been going on besides some vague ideas about fashion trends from the sequence of Brannas that have come in and out of there. So...” He clapped his hands. “Tell me everything you can about what's happened in the past three hundred years. Leave nothing out.”

  ***

  Fandar Branna stared at the hole in the wall of his palace, and he knew that he should've seen something like this coming.

  The guards were scrambling, answering questions from the other noble families as best they could. Rumors of what had happened had already seeped into the city, and he could see the crowd of people gathered around the fallen wooden doors of the palace gates. Further away, near the city walls, even more were gathered around the bent and buckled metal doors to the world beyond.

  A single man had done this. A servant who was Voiceless had done this. Fandar had been taken into the secret chamber underneath the library when he was a young man by his father, as his father had before him, going back to Fala Branna, vanquisher of Rorzan himself, and his son. The guarding of Rorzan's guitar was an intrinsic a duty to the holder of the Lord Branna mantle, as much as governing the domain they held and maintaining relationships with the other High Lords. It was their family duty, to ensure that the cursed instrument never made it outside the walls of Papreon.

  And he had failed that duty spectacularly.

  One of the palace guard approached him and bowed. “Lord Branna, we have a tally of the wounded.”

  Fandar nodded without looking away from the hole in the wall. “And?”

  “Forty guardsman were incapacitated, most of those from... whatever he did here.” The guard's eyes flicked to the hole in the wall. “Most of them took the wave of force in center mass. We have a lot of cracked ribs. Healers are working on them now.”

  Fandar nodded. “Any dead?”

  “None, fortunately. Mostly broken bones and some concussions. We got off easy.”

  “Small mercies,” Fandar said. “Thank you, guardsman.” The guard bowed and left. The High Lord stared out over his domain for another minute, then turned and left the foyer. He had matters to attend to. The first was to talk to his son.

  He found Yilon tending to the wounded, singing in harmony with the palace healers as they laid hands on a guardsman who wheezed as he breathed, though with each breath the effort grew less labored. “Yilon. I need to talk to you.”

  Yilon's mouth snapped shut and he muttered an apology to the healers, who waved him away. When he rose to face Fandar, his face was a grim mask, many emotions warring on his face. “What about?” he asked.

  Fandar inclined his head and walked away from the healers. He didn't need to look to make sure that Yilon was following him. It was expected. They walked for a few minutes until they were well away from anyone else. Then Fandar stopped and looked back at his son. “Be honest with me, Yilon. Did you tell Vann of the secret chamber?”

  Yilon shook his head. “No. You told me to never speak of it to anyone, that it was a matter of being a Lord. I do take some of the things you say seriously, father.”

  Fandar relaxed. “I just wanted to be sure, Yilon. But if you didn't tell him, how did he get down there?”

  Yilon ran his hands through his hair. “I don't know. Vann's in the library every day, though. Maybe the bookcase was out of place slightly, and he noticed that and went to fix it, and accidentally opened up the staircase.”

  “That's ridiculous, Yilon,” Fandar said, offended at the suggestion. “I'd never leave any sign that something was amiss.”

  Yilon took a deep breath and leaned against the wall, his eyes distant. “So what happens now?” He made a face. “What about Mother?”

  Of all the complications that had arisen that day – theft of a dangerous instrument, damage to his palace, a city now aware that something was very, every wrong - Fandar had never expected infidelity to be among them. Honestly, it wasn't something that had taken him by surprise, but it was just one more thing he had to deal with all at once. He hummed a cadence softly to himself while tapping his thigh in time with the beat, a calming ritual he'd picked up from his late father. One thing at a time.

  “Leave your mother to me,” he said, turning to face Yilon. He put his hands on his son's shoulders. “The priority is getting that instrument back. I know not what possessed Vann to take it, but it doesn't matter. We need to get it back before it falls into the wrong hands.”

  Yilon huffed out a breath. “For a moment I was worried you were going to count Vann among such elements,” he said.

  “The guitar is what matters,” Fandar said. “But I'm Lord, and I must take charge during times like this. Return to healing the wounded, then go out among the citizens outside and assuage them that things are being taken care of.”

  Yilon nodded, determination shining in his eyes. “Yes, Father.”

  “Good lad.” Fandar clapped Yilon on the shoulders. “Off you go.”

  As Yilon left, Fandar watched him go. He hummed the cadance again a few times, then huffed a breath out through his nose.

  “Copper for your thoughts, my Lord?”

  He smirked. “My thoughts are worth a bit more than that, Ansel.” Fandar turned to look at his Guard Captain. Ansel was a brawny man with wide shoulders and a full beard, his curly hair cropped appropriately short. From his belt hung a hunting horn made from a unicorn's horn, along with a hefty broadsword and a thick gnarled wooden cudgel. Ansel had always preferred a more direct method of dealing with troublemakers and rabble-rousers. His dark eyes held a savage joy, the kind of eyes that were still laughing as he beat a man mercilessly.

  “Indeed,” Ansel said. “What's to be done, then, eh? Are we going to make this public or keep it... discreet?”

  Fandar folded his arms into the sleeves of his robes. “Making a big deal out of this will only make for more trouble. Bringing Vann back in irons will only upset Yilon, more so when Vann meets his fate. But that instrument cannot be allowed to roam free.” He looked at Ansel. “I will not allow another war to happen. N
ot on my watch.”

  Ansel nodded. “Discreet then.”

  “Take twenty of your best and leave immediately,” Fandar said. “Track them down. Bring the guitar back.” He turned and began walking towards the library. He was going to have a look at the defences around the secret chamber to make sure that something like this never happened again. “And make it so Vann's body will never be found.”

  Chapter Three – The World According To Rorzan

  “You've got to be kidding me,” Rorzan said. “They annexed them? The whole territory?”

  Vann's wondered if he'd ever feel anything from his waist to his knees ever again. They'd ridden on the northern road for hours, the sun beginning to sink towards the horizon, barely stopping for anything save for a break where he relieved himself. He'd kept his mind occupied by catching Rorzan up on three centuries of Scalerian history as the terrain around them grew more wooded, thin pines and firs giving way to thicker oaks that the dirt road cut through.

  “Yeah,” he said, his face in a constant state of wince from the bouncing up and down. “That ended twenty years ago, when I was young. Since then, we've had no major conflict, and everything's been really quiet.” Until today at least, he corrected himself.

  “So that leaves what, just five major territories?” Rorzan asked, counting on his fingers.

  “Six,” Vann corrected. “Counting Ibanz in the south.”

  Rorzan folded his arms. “Can't believe it. There were twelve Lord families when I was around.” He grinned. “Well, I made it thirteen.”

  They lapsed into silence after that for a while, going another few miles up the road until the black mare slowed down again. It was panting heavily, it's eyes wide and it's mane disheveled. “Should we scare it again, or what?” Vann asked.

  Rorzan shook his head. “Nope. We're where we need to be.”

  Ahead of them was a crossroad. There were two paths they could take to stay on the road – either go forward and continue north, or turn left and head west on a road that would eventually fork and go back south to Papreon or north to Tarmann.