Ecko Burning

by Danie Ware

  At the bridge’s end, they passed a bright stall selling roasting foodstuffs, the smell rich, almost too sweet. His stomach turned, throat still full of nausea and tension.

  Lugan shot at him, “If you’re gonna puke, make it fast - an’ make sure it’s in the water.”

  Behind them, coming across the bridge, there was a flash of blue. Brilliant, azure blue. A cloak hem, the billow of a long skirt...?

  The Bard lurched into motion once more. The colour faded into the grey and was gone.

  “Keep your ’ead down and as many people between you an’ it as you can. Fucks up the pheromone trace. “Shit!”

  As they left the metal bridge behind them, a barrier lay across their path - a thoroughfare of some sort, noisy, acrid and black. At its edge, the people had packed into an obedient block, controlled to docility by an incomprehensible system of lights and markings.

  One of the blue-lit air vehicles - “drones” - buzzed them like an outsized insect and was gone.

  Such chaos; such rigid order! It was all he could do not to claw at his own throat, tear open his windpipe in an effort to find clean air, space. I have to breathe!

  But Lugan didn’t stop. He jostled his way to the front, agitated, eyes on the light that commanded thought and movement.

  “It’s a ‘sniffer’ - hi-tech tracker. Can pick up your pheromones at ten metres, body-’eat signature at five and the spit from your breath at two. Short version? That thing gets up close and personal, it’s gonna know all my secrets. Everything I got on record.” He gave a brief grin, but it faded just as quickly. “But why the fuck is it followin’ us?”

  Communication. Everywhere. All the time.

  The Bard’s thoughts rolled like stones, sending ripples through his tension - his need for information was so strong it hurt. Sera’s life, Kale’s death, the life of the tavern itself -

  The flicker of azure was closer.

  “Don’t stand gawping!” Lugan thumped his shoulder. “Drone gets a zap of your eyeballs, you’re bagged.” Insanely, the big blonde man was grinning, tight and whetted through his beard. “C’mon, you fucker, change.”

  On a small tower by the roadside, lights flicked colour. Obediently, the crowd surged into the road.

  Lugan and the Bard were carried at the front of the wave.

  The azure flash was at the back.

  They had more room now, and they moved more quickly, dodging the incoming people and staying ahead of the swell.

  Buildings rose ahead of him, carven stone, impossible glass. Unseen in the bustle, sudden steps tripped him to a stumble. The crowd shifted and muttered, but they parted for Lugan like the tall grass of the Varchinde.

  The grass Roderick had left dying behind him.

  “St Paul’s,” Lugan said. “Take a left - an’ let’s move it.”

  With still no idea where they were going, Roderick tumbled helplessly in his wake.

  “She’s still with us,” Lugan said. “Bitch is right up my fuckin’ arse.”

  Then, ahead of them, a high cathedral, a stern rise of scrubbed-clean stone that stood domed and pale against the grim and overheated sky. Upon it, weathered statues stared blindly outwards, uncaring of the sea of people below.

  It was old, and beautiful - and it was soul-empty.

  Kazyen.

  As they pushed around its huge stone flank, he saw that the massive double doors were sealed closed against the tide of the lost. Instead, bright banners hung from tall stone pillars, vulgar and out of place. They bore the emblem of a man crouched under a heavy pack and were emblazoned, “Be Valiant. Be a Pilgrim”.

  Pilgrim.

  Lugan was using his height and mass to carve through the crowd like an axe. The splash of azure was still behind them; here, there, somewhere, and closing.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” Lugan muttered. “What does it take?”

  The monotone spoke over him, unctuous and smooth. Welcome to St Paul’s Cathedral. Please do not touch or deface Cathedral property. Cathedral attendants are on hand to ensure your visit is pleasant and trouble free. Welcome to St Paul’s Cathedral...

  “Fuller, I need Collator!” A moment later, Lugan said, again, “Fuck!”

  Just as Roderick wondered who he was talking to, he half turned and spilled swift words as if trying to explain.

  “Collator’s down, Fuller can’t get drone coverage - ’e’s in the system, but ’e can’t do it alone. City security’s like a coked-up pro, it’s all over ’im.” Another glance, another surge of speed. “No net, we’re on our own.”

  The words were baffling, but the name - “Collator”. It was the world-builder, the thing that Ecko had said was controlling how his reality unfolded.

  Pilgrim. Kazyen.

  Somehow, all this hung together. For a moment, he turned the concepts over, looking at them as if they were broken pieces of pottery, trying to work out what they made.

  Communication. Everywhere. All the time.

  No net, we’re on our own.

  Was it - was there some sort of elemental powerflux? A powerflux of information?

  The thought brought a thrill, wordless and unexpressable, an excitement that made him tremble.

  Around them, the press of people had become almost immobile, tight, crushing. Noise was constant, an endless, hovering hum; enough to chase him out of his mind, an enclosure of incessant sound.

  The flash of reflected sunlight came again. He shivered.

  “Fuck this,” Lugan said softly. He paused to glance around, then, sharply changed direction.

  He shoved people forcibly out of their path. Passers-by stumbled, retorts dying unspoken as they looked up at the leathers that had barged them. Rapidly Lugan and Roderick came to the edge of the plaza, to a row of garishly lit market stores, and a wash of scents too cloying sweet to think through.

  She was almost upon them - almost close enough to feel them, to breathe their lies, their truth. Paused in the chill-draught doorway of the merchant store, they crossed gazes - worlds apart yet pulled together by impossibility.

  Roderick said, “Wait... wait. If I understand this, she is a scout? And she can feel us, know who we are?” He was grappling with the concept, not entirely sure what he was suggesting. “The man in the road, the accident. Was Kale. She must’ve realised...”

  Lugan stopped, grinned and then slapped the Bard on the back hard enough to make him stagger.

  “You’re a fuckin’ genius. Follow me, I’ve ’ad an idea...”

  And they ran through the overstuffed streets.

  Measureless, endless, a flood of noise and sensation; an almighty collage-sprawl of a city that unrolled in every direction, as far as he could dream. Narrow alleyways and huge thoroughfares, endless signs, garish boards, brilliant lights...

  Lugan ducked and turned frequently - though not quite frequently enough. At every corner, there she was, her mouth open as if to inhale their very scent.

  They ran on.

  Great skeletal creatures, angles that lifted mighty weights, monuments to heroes forgotten, parks abandoned and trees filth-streaked and dying. And everywhere, everywhere, the soulless press of the people, Kazyen-lost. Their wealth was incomprehensible - and yet they had nothing.

  It was coming closer. He could hear it now, a sharp tapping of metal on stone, a laugh like a girl’s, caught and teased by a wind he couldn’t feel.

  Must... breathe... must... breathe!

  He remembered, his thoughts running words to the rhythm it gave him, his boots thudding counterpoint on the hard flags.

  “Move!” Lugan roared.

  I was hailed as the hope of my people. The first guardian born in Avesyr in over a thousand returns. And I took a liberty - a blasphemy - that no mortal man may take.

  I craved knowledge, needed to see. I touched my fingertips to the waters of the Ryll. And I alone bore witness to the world’s nightmare, to the terror she has forgotten. In seeking truth, I found only a question I can never answer, a desire I can ne
ver fulfil.

  He shivered with the possibility: Until now. Here.

  The lore they possess, their communication, their information. Their powerflux. This is my answer. Somehow, I must understand...

  Somewhere in his crowded heart, old images were awakening, thrumming like the strings of an instrument. He was skirting the very edge of his lifelong dream, of everything he’d ever needed to be.

  Everywhere. All the time.

  They ran.

  His surroundings were becoming familiar - a huge, red-bricked bridge with rails of metal that stank like the breath of Vahl Zaxaar himself... Metal fences and discarded rubbish, coloured, angular artworks scrawled on walls.

  The blue creature was very close now, an eager lover, seeking to uncover everything he had.

  The monotone was fainter here, faded like a nightmare. He found he could fill his lungs - and then cough with the metallic taint that seemed to coat his throat from the inside.

  And she had them.

  They were cornered in a courtyard, the great bridge behind them, the blue stalker in front. Her eyes glittered scarlet as though full of blood.

  “Eastermann,” she said sweetly. “Alexander David. Alias: Lugan. Alias: Ade. Personal Identification Number, on record and correct. Geolocation -”

  “Fuller?” Lugan took a pace sideways and said softly, “Now!”

  The metal door behind him opened.

  It rolled upwards like paper, a clanking and a clattering that drowned out everything the creature was trying to say.

  But he heard Lugan’s mutter, “If it’s big enough to fuck Collator, love, it’s big enough for you.”

  The creature stopped, stared.

  At The Wanderer, flood-lit with every brilliant white lamp that Lugan’s team could muster, dazzling and incomprehensible in the space that had been the Bike Lodge.

  The creature twitched, swayed slightly, and tumbled sideways.

  As the door started to rumble back down, Lugan loosed a triumphant snort, punched the Bard’s shoulder hard enough to rock him sideways.

  “Welcome to London,” he said.

  PART 2: PATTERNS

  10: DANCING

  TRADE-ROADS, SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE AMOS

  Ecko sat calm, his guts in turmoil.

  Evening wrapped him; the air was as cool and soft as a laundry ad. Amos was a dwindling shadow and the trade-road that’d cut through her manors and farms was now fading to a stretch of dilapidated sunbleach, tumbledown and quiet. They had moved out to one side of it, and its last buildings stretched reaching shadows over the fantastical flame-colours of the grass.

  Behind them, a faint mist was gathering, loitering at their heels; somewhere ahead, the ground shrugged upwards into stubby, green-swathed mountains. Trees stood angled, stooped by the long wind.

  Ecko’s guts didn’t care.

  He sat hunched, almost daring the beauty to touch him. The whole thing was like a fucking postcard - not real. Something you’d find on the noticeboard in Lugan’s office sent by a smug client - “Wish you were here”.

  Ecko had a lot of wishes. Postcards and smug clients weren’t any of them.

  In front of his cowled face, a small fire burned, warm and compelling. If he held up a hand, the colours of the grass were the shifting flame-shades of his skin. He’d sat before a fire like this one with Pareus and Tarvi, and the members of their tan who’d died defending him.

  Yeah, an’ if Eliza’d wanted to whack me round the back of the head with a bit of psyche-job-two-by-four...

  Bitch.

  The word had become a reflex, aimed at nothing more than his own resentment.

  On the fire’s far side, gold skin shimmering, sat Triqueta, her expression thoughtful and her eyes on the embers’ glow. In the warm light, her increase in age was less obvious, and her face was gentle, its lean lines lost in the flickers of warmth and shadow.

  Leaping sparks reflected in the stones in her cheeks, lighting them to flashes of flame.

  He wasn’t looking at her, anyway. Didn’t want to look at her. Not in firelight. Too many figments danced in the heat. Memories of the Sical, the temptation it had offered him...

  Worthy, you. Grant everything you wish.

  He curled his fingernails into the palms of his hands, hurting.

  And it wasn’t like she was looking at him, for chrissakes. She glanced down from the firelight to the blades across her knees, the nicks in the edges, the splits in the resin. Terhnwood was perishable stuff, and it needed maintenance.

  After a moment, he turned away.

  A short distance from the fire, at the back of the peeling buildings, their lone pack-chearl was hobbled, its head down as it nosed the grass. Close to it, Redlock stood solid, both axes neatly parrying a series of cut and slash manoeuvres by a determined Amethea, her long belt-blade in her hand. The girl was sweating, teeth gritted, and concentrating hard. Each blow was carefully placed - a rhythmic sequence of slashing attacks to shoulder and hip that spanked neatly from the axe hafts. The impacts echoed in ripples from the wooden walls. Then Redlock began to retreat. He crossed a long band of sunshine that tumbled through a dirty alleyway, and coaxed his opponent to move forward with each attack.

  “Good, good! Watch your footing, place the blow carefully. Keep your distance constant. Now - defend!” As he advanced, one axe striking after the other in a careful, rhythmic pattern, she backed one pace at a time, circle-blocking each blow as it came in. After a moment, he sped the attacks up, pushing. She matched his speed, her face hardening with concentration.

  “She’s getting better,” Triq commented. “More confident.”

  Redlock was grinning as the teacher blocked each blow. “Good, yes, well done! Now - back at me. Mix them up this time!”

  With a breath like resolve, Amethea did just that, her strikes now coming randomly, slow at first, then gaining more speed.

  Triqueta watched them, mischief in her face. As Ecko glanced at her - not that he was looking - she picked up a small stone from beside the fire, rested it in her hand. Redlock matched parry after parry, his haft blocks aggressive, strong. Aiming, Triqueta flicked the stone at him, the movement a flickering dance through the heat of the fire.

  The axeman didn’t even look. One weapon flashed in the light of the setting sun. There was a faint tink as it took the tiny stone clean out of the air.

  No oculars. No reflexes.

  Holy fucking shit.

  Redlock grinned, but he didn’t look round.

  Triqueta chuckled, shook her head with what might have been admiration.

  “He’s too good for his own good, that one.” The comment was conspiratorial, aimed at Ecko’s huddle of silence. “Can you do that?”

  Oh please. Mom made me. I can do things you’ve never even fucking dreamed -

  With an effort, he swallowed a throat full of tangled, wordless envy, an undefined sense of inadequacy - as if his very enhancements were somehow about failure, about cheating. He picked up a loose strand of grass and held its end to the fire, watching it burn.

  But Triqueta was still watching him, her eyes flashing gold.

  “What?” He looked over the flame. Dared her, fucking dared her.

  “I’m trying to work it out, Ecko. What this is all about. I’m trying to work out if you’re not just here looking for the -sulph-whatever-it-is - and if you’re not just going to grab it and jump wagon at the last minute.”

  “Jump ship, you jump off a ship, what is it with you people?” He held the tiny flame up, let it glitter from his black-on-black eyes. He had no fucking idea what he was supposed to answer.

  C’mon Eliza. What’m I s’posed to do here? Pick her flowers? Sing?

  From beside them, there was a sudden, masculine curse. Redlock had fallen back, slung one axe and dabbed a hand to his face - a hand that came away bloody. As Amethea gasped and started to apologise, he laughed at her.

  “No, it’s good - and that’s enough for this evening. You’ve wounded me, Thea,
wounded me sore.”

  “Gods, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t -”

  “Enough!” He grinned. “You got one through - that’s good. Let’s take a break and persuade Triq to go hunt dinner.”

  Triqueta called back to him, “Hunt it yourself!”

  “You hunt it, I’ll cook it.”

  She snorted. “There are quicker ways to kill people.”

  Chuckling, Redlock came to sit beside her and grinned at Ecko across the heat’s waver.

  “Axes are okay for firewood - but they’re shit for downing passing esphen. Which reminds me...” He inspected their edges ruefully and rummaged in a belt pouch.

  Ecko said nothing, watched the camaraderie with a hurt that might have been resentment, or anger. The smoke from the fire was getting in his eyes; the must/must not of his friendships tore at his mind and heart and skin. Christ, some part of him just wanted to put his fucking hand right in the fire until he could focus, control himself, another part wanted to get up and run and never ever come back. But he was as trapped out here as he had been in Amos, as he had been ever since The Wanderer had fallen into the depths. Trapped walking Eliza’s path because these people were his friends and they fucking trusted him.

  And he had to go along, no matter what the hell it was gonna cost him.

  Dance, Ecko. Daaaaance...

  Yeah, you just wait. I’ll fucking show you how to dance...

  Then, from the long shadows of the nearby buildings, there came a single, sharp cry.

  Cut suddenly short.

  His thoughts shattered, spun out into the sunset in a thousand sparkling shards. He was on his feet without thinking, adrenaline humming, muscles alight, targeters crossing on the threat...

  There!

  Amethea stood rock-solid, the resin glitter of a knife across her throat. Behind her was a tall, cloaked figure with a classic assassin’s hood covering most of its face.

  Bandits? Adrenalised or no, Ecko spent a second staring in genuine disbelief. Seriously?

  But their presence made him cackle like a fiend, his mood suddenly lifting - Bandits, for chrissakes. These guys were about to have the worst night of their fucking lives. It hadda be more fun than warm milk and storytime and a nice early night...