Ecko Burning

by Danie Ware

  Lugan said, But it’s solid? Close Encounters of the Beer Kind?

  ’Fraid so. Two storeys, total height at roof apex just under six metres - means it hasn’t breached the railway bridge. No internal security I can ascertain. Does have a sizeable cellar system - we’ve lost access to rooms three through seven.

  Collator?

  Analysing for nanotech bio-polymer and showing weather systems in Guatemala. I think he’s got a headache. Not much help, doing this old school.

  Lugan snorted, watched the strange building. What ’appened to Miz Gabriel?

  Floored her Beamer and fled. You want her traced?

  Keep an eye on ’er willya? And get a full chemical scan of every-fucking-thing she touched. Check the air recyclers. If we’re trippin’ our nuts off, I wanna know.

  Will do.

  The sub-vocal exchange had taken barely a moment. The goth-type was crouched, looking down at the dead girl, at her last, shocked expression.

  Lugan shifted faintly awkwardly, his boots making scars in the grass.

  The man didn’t look up. When he spoke, his voice was rust and steel.

  “She was a child. She did nothing to you.”

  The commander glowered. “Is this some sorta joke?” The body was just another impossibility; this whole thing was a movie, a brainrig, a trip. “’Cause it ain’t funny.”

  The goth-type shot him a glance. Somehow, his face was too young for the lines that carved through it, though his expression was hard as setting ferrocrete.

  “I require an apothecary,” he said. “And an explanation.”

  “Not sure that one needs a doc.” Lugan was brutal and didn’t bloody well care. “I dunno ’ow the fuck you got this in ’ere, but you get it the fuck back out. Before I bring in the JCB.”

  The goth raised an eyebrow. He stayed down by the girl as if he were guarding her, and said, “My name is Roderick of Avesyr.” He threw the words like weapons, daring. “And I’m a friend of the man who calls himself ‘Ecko’. You know him. He has a silent G.”

  The commander skidded up short, lunacy screaming like jammed-on brakes. “What?”

  Now, the goth stood up, as tall as Lugan, lighter on his feet. Lugan’s scans showed no enhancements, no wacky trip-colours, only body-heat - body-heat and anger.

  “You heard me,” the man said. “Now, I require an apothecary.”

  The commander snorted. “Or you’ll do what exactly? Conjure dragons?”

  The woman had her hands on the injured man’s shoulder in an attempt to staunch the bleeding. It took a minute for Lugan to realise that she was pressing the front of the wound, not the back.

  As if she felt Lugan looking, her chin lifted and her expression was hard as a promise.

  Christ on a bike.

  Lugan was catching himself up - and wondering what the bloody hell was going on. He felt like he’d walked onto a set, like he’d dropped some big fat pill and was tripping his nuts off, like that little bitch Tarquinne, Ecko’s sister, had come in here and spiked his tea. He punched the wall again as if expecting it to move, to splinter and waver and fade under his fist - but the goth was still speaking, anger thrumming like a bassline.

  He said, “I know you, Lugan. I know the mission you sent Ecko upon. I know about Pilgrim, about Grey. Now, if you want an explanation, you get me a damned leech.” The last word was a snarl.

  The mission you sent Ecko upon.

  About Pilgrim, about Grey.

  Fuming now, helpless, confused, guilty, Lugan surged into the doorway that Strafe had kicked in - but he wouldn’t go through it, not yet.

  He said, “Whatever this is, it ain’t fucking funny. Ecko failed ’is mission, ’e died. An’ if you don’t shut your mouth, you’ll be -”

  “Joining him?” The goth came forwards, facing him, fearless. “How many of my friends with me? Is this usually how you treat -”

  “This ain’t fuckin’ ’alloween, mate.” His anger was focusing now. Lugan pressed the goth for a reaction. “You ain’t ’ere an’ that’s the end of it.”

  “How do I prove it to you?” The goth was opposite him now, staring out at the workshop, the oil stains, the bits of bike and old posters. “Ecko believes you abandoned him, threw him away.” He was fast, merciless. “Use of your name angers him. He misses you, though he would never admit it. Do you need me to tell you how tall he is? What of your cybernetics he offers? What he likes for his noontide meal?” His face set. “Do you?”

  Lugan lifted a fist, but the woman shouted up at them, “Oh for Gods’ sakes, stop it! Silfe is dead. Sera too if you don’t do something! Put your cocks away and help!”

  “Jesus fucking Christ!” Lugan’s head was spinning. If Tarquinne had been here to put something in his bloodstream, then it might explain why he felt like was going to chuck up.

  Fuller? You there? What the ’ell —?

  Chemical scan negative, Luge; the air-recyclers are pure. Furball’s on stand-by - you can save that guy’s life if you get the gurney in there now.

  “Bollocks!” Again, the commander slammed a fist into the wall. This time, he split his knuckles and a spatter of blood baptised the brickwork.

  He had no clue what the fuck he was supposed to do. There were too many connections, too many coincidences, too many impossibilities - it all roared round his head like the Wall of Death at a rally, and the engine noise was deafening him. He reached for explanations, tried to make sense of it, gave up.

  This is bullshit!

  Fuller’s calm tones still spoke in his ear. Bio-polymer scan negative. And last I heard 3D printers weren’t that good at granite. Luge - either we’re all tripping... or that thing’s really here.

  We’re all fucking tripping, mate.

  Roderick said, his voice soft, “Ecko was here, Lugan. His kit is in my cellars, his memory burned across the minds of my” - his voice cracked - “of my staff.”

  The word was an accusation, helpless and bereft. The man dropped his gaze, exhaled, rubbed thumb and forefinger over his eyes.

  Shit. Lugan reached for a dog-end, lit it, blew a stream of greasy smoke in the goth’s face. “You bring ’is kit out ’ere, and I’ll send in the doc.”

  “Come in and see it for yourself.” Upset or not, the goth didn’t even cough.

  Lugan hissed tobacco between his teeth.

  Any further response was drowned out by a rising, thunderous rumble, a heavy-weight of noise that gathered force and fury - the 16:03, right on time and right over their heads. Tools jumped on their wall-nails, pottery wine containers clattered in their racks.

  A roof-tile slammed edge-first into soft garden soil.

  The train deafened them, then faded.

  The goth took a step forward, coming right to the inside of the shattered door.

  “Lugan,” he said softly. “Upon my life and upon my word as once Ryll Guardian, this is The Wanderer - and we are really here. Ecko is my friend - though that friendship can be hard to manage.” He paused, looking for the connection, the point of shared empathy. “Please. These people mean the world to me. Help Sera.”

  Canny fucker. Lugan labelled him. Talker, fixer, dealer. Over the link, he said, Fuller?

  Voice stress analysis right off the scale - has a level of sincerity I’ve never heard. He believes what he’s saying - completely. Heart rate’s failing on the injured guy.

  Lugan leaned down and picked up the roof-tile, fragments of soil and moss clinging to its edges, pieces of another world. One sharp blow to the head, a couple of strategic detonations and a night trip down to the river... This whole mess would just go the fuck away.

  Fuller said, I’m getting no electrical signature whatsoever, no data-feed, no security systems. No external comms. No plastics, no man-made fibres. And this is weird - I’m getting almost no metals, pure or alloy.

  Cam?

  We’ve got audio, can’t get the angles for visual. Furball’s good to go, Luge.

  Awright! Quit the guilt trip!
r />   Dog-end stuck to his bottom lip, Lugan squinted through the rising smoke.

  “If Ecko was ’ere,” he said, “then where’s ’e now.” He dropped the tile, edge first, into the soft soil and put his boot on it, driving it down.

  Roderick took a step out of the doorway, breaking the barrier, looking up at the workshop that surrounded him. In the light, his hair was blacker than any goth’s, his oddly young face drawn in suntan and white lines.

  “I will tell you everything I can.” His voice was lambent, and contained a tension that went somehow beyond the situation. “If you will help Sera.”

  Stepping past him in some bizarre act of symmetry, Lugan’s boots hit the floor of “The Wanderer” with a one-two thump. Oculars spinning, targeting, analysing, he surveyed its warm, wooden interior, took a deep, smokeless breath.

  As his eyes adjusted, he saw properly the girl on the floor, the back of her skull shattered, her eyes and mouth still open in shock. He’d seen such things before, but this one... She was a slender little thing, maybe sixteen, and there was a tiny piece of pale-pink ribbon tied round one wrist. He wondered where she’d come from...

  How he would ever fucking apologise.

  Shit.

  Swallowing hard now, he ran a callused hand through his beard.

  “Awright,” he said. Then to Fuller, Go Furball. He dropped his dog-end and stood on it, leaving an ash stain on the floor. “Look, mate. I don’t know who you are, where the fuck you came from, or whether I’m just havin’ the biggest motherfuckin’ trip of my life. But that shit?” He nodded at the girl. “Ain’t funny. An’ I’ll fix what I can.”

  The goth turned, nodded. “Karine,” he said to the woman, “leave Sera with me - please find Kale.”

  * * *

  Walking the building cellars to roof was not a short task, but its conclusion was gradually clear - the cook was missing.

  Karine had found his last moments - deep gouge marks in the kitchen doorframe, repeated and desperate as if he’d been scrabbling, trying to hold on. The door itself was open, but it showed only the small garden at the rear of the building, now flooded with more of the harsh white light.

  The kitchen floor was covered in splinters.

  Looking at the marks of the struggle, remembering the awful, fading howl, the Bard felt his heart shrinking. He’d no idea if Kale was loose in Ecko’s great grey London, or if he’d simply fallen and was lost somewhere outside the Count of Time.

  He had lost one member of his team today and almost lost a second.

  And enough was enough.

  When the Bard returned to the taproom, he found Lugan behind the bar, eyeing some of the barrels with curiosity. Sera had gone; a sheet covered Silfe.

  Without looking round, Lugan said, “Your bloke’s in prep for surgery. There ain’t no one else in ’ere - I could’ve told you that much.”

  “How do you know?” Roderick said.

  Something in his voice made Lugan turn to look at him with an odd expression in his eyes.

  “Info, mate. Communication. It’s everywhere, all the time.” He flashed a grin, teeth stained and yellow. “You just ’ave to know how to get it.”

  For a moment, the weight of the comment missed him. Roderick said, “Then Kale -”

  “’E’s not ’ere. You should’ve asked.”

  And then the Bard realised the sheer enormity of what Lugan had just said. His system shot through with adrenaline, as powerful as anything of Ecko’s. His stomach roiled.

  He touched the thought like an injury, tentative: It’s everywhere. All the time. You just have to know...

  He found he was shaking. He couldn’t speak. He was staring down at the stained sheet that covered Silfe, at the shape of her body under the fabric, at the hard shadows cast by the light.

  Ecko had told him and he’d not understood the might of it, the sheer scope of the power they wielded...

  Communication. Everywhere. All the time.

  By the Ryll! This... He had spent his life looking for this. For lore. For answers. For a way to understand.

  Everywhere. All the time.

  For -

  Cutting his tumble of wonder dead, Karine said, “Then do you know where he is? We’ve got to find him. Kale’s” - her voice turned plaintive - “Kale’s dangerous.”

  “Dangerous ’ow?” Lugan chuckled. “’E gonna jab someone with a big sword?”

  “Don’t jest,” Karine told him. “Kale’d tear you to bits.” Lugan’s chuckle gained a hint of guffaw.

  Roderick shook himself; his mind was still reeling but the thought of Kale loose in the city was critical, immediate.

  He said, “We need to find him. Before any harm comes to him - or anyone else. Karine, you should stay with The Wanderer, with Sera, with Silfe...” His voice held the name, just for a moment. “I need to find Kale. Lugan, I think that you and your lore should come with me.”

  Lugan blinked, shrugged huge shoulders. “Any second now,” he said conversationally, “everything’s going to slide the fuck sideways. There’s gonna be a seething multi-colour of Mathmos-lamp background and I’ll be rollin’ one more before bed...”

  “We must find Kale,” Roderick said. “And you - your communication, your information - you need to help. You need to find him before he causes trouble that cannot be undone, before I lose anyone else. Before your Pilgrim finds something it will not understand.” His expression said, Please.

  Something hit home. Lugan looked at him sharply, chewed his lip for a moment, then seemed to reconsider.

  “Awright,” he said at last. “You wanna do this? Let me take you by the ’and an’ lead you through the streets of London. Someone’s mind is gonna get a fuckin’ change.”

  * * *

  “Bollocks.”

  Lugan spat the dog-end from the corner of his mouth and said, very softly, “Walk with me, quick and quiet. Keep your eyes off the sky. And don’t say a fuckin’ word.”

  I don’t understand...

  His hand on Roderick’s elbow was cold stone, as uncompromising as his attitude, as the jut of his bearded jaw. Already spinning from the sight, the sounds, the smells, the strangeness, the great city’s assault on his senses, the Bard did as he was told. What choice did he have?

  This was London. Ecko’s home. It clamoured and it stank and it overpowered his senses. It grew around him - upwards and inwards, it grew into the sky like some vast glass-and-metal canker. It was too big, too much. It bewildered him and he could only cling to his confusion and hope to survive.

  “We gotta lose this bitch,” Lugan said. “Stay close.”

  On the other side of the roadway, there was some sort of disturbance, flashing lights and guards with arms outstretched; strips of fluttering fabric sealing off a part of the road. Over it, flying things hovered. People drifted past, showing little curiosity - between their movements, the Bard thought he saw a man slumped, dark blood spreading from his fallen body.

  Fear flooded his mouth. He only the saw the man briefly, but he knew who it was...

  Kale?

  “Move!” He only realised he’d stopped when he felt a tug on his sleeve. He stumbled in Lugan’s wake like a blind man.

  Kale?

  It was too much to take in, unreal. Silfe had gone, and now Kale. Out here, impossible, in the road, stone and winding streets. Claustrophobia. Coughing. Pulling on his sleeve. Something following them. And then, suddenly, they came out from between the crowded, crazed buildings and there was a river. Wide and slow and filthy, but a river nonetheless.

  His thoughts reeling, the Bard tried to stop.

  Please do not run on the Millennium Bridge.

  But the faceless, pointless monotone seemed to speak at him alone; it surrounded him, closed him in, preyed upon his ears. He couldn’t think through the noise. It shut his throat and filled his mind with -

  “Dammit, move!”

  Spray can make the surface slippery. Please do not run...

  Propelled b
y the man’s huge, stained hand, Roderick blundered, still in shock. He was crazed, tensed, choking, a tumbling mote at the centre of colossal impossibility. How...?

  Even if he asked the questions, the answers would make no sense. And why could he not breathe?

  Spray can make the surface slippery...

  Lugan didn’t let him slow down. Their boots rang in rhythm on the slender metal span. The people before them jostled them blankly, uncaring, unspeaking. They bore themselves like the weight of the sky pressed them down. They muttered emptily, lost to Kazyen, as Lugan elbowed them out of the way.

  “It’s following us from the accident we passed. We stay in the crowd, it can’t touch us. We need to lose this fucker. Like now.”

  The accident we passed... His thoughts reeled. How does it know who we are?

  He couldn’t grasp it, it was as strange as the sky, the water, the air, the colourless, blank-eyed populace. As strange as the bridge beneath their feet.

  Metal. In the midst of his reeling bafflement, a question. How can there be this much metal?

  He tripped. Lugan pushed him urgently on. The blonde man glanced back repeatedly, blue lights flickering like fire-sparks at the corner of his eyes.

  So familiar!

  But the Bard stumbled blindly, hanging tightly to his self-control while the world spun round him, questions unanswered. The water was brown, strewn with garbage, and it stank. The city’s air was dense, choking-close, the cloud so low he could almost have touched it. Even here, it was smothering, too hot, thick and grey, somehow unhealthy; it tasted wrong. It ached in his lungs and he struggled to keep up, to draw breath. To comprehend.

  Lugan muttered tightly, “Quit daydreamin’ and shift your arse.” He gave a wicked, half-threatening aside. “Unless you wanna swim?”

  The water below them seemed devoid of life - only the boats that ripped up its surface, the desperate that combed its grey-pebbled beaches. For a fleeting moment, he wondered what they sought.

  But Lugan was still pushing, tension in every line and movement.

  And the grip on his arm did not slacken.