Ecko Burning

by Danie Ware

  “No. I don’t believe that. If he’d caused the blight, Phylos would have thrown him down for it publicly.” A sudden thought occurred. “And why was it Phylos that carried out Rhan’s sentence? Why not the Justicar, Halydd? Or Mostak himself?”

  Selana twitched a shrug. “My uncle’s dying, he’s in the hospice. I can’t even get in to see him.”

  “My Lord, you’re the Foundersdaughter of Fhaveon.” Mael took hold of the information like he was taking hold of her shoulders. “You can go where you choose.”

  She looked up, blinked at him.

  “Mostak’s your family.” Mael was thinking faster now, he was onto something here. He followed the thought through. “Or would Phylos have reason for stopping you?”

  “My uncle’s in isolation.”

  It was apologetic, and Mael knew he’d made the point.

  “My Lord, we all heard the Seneschal’s words, ‘I love and guard this city with everything I am. And when my damned brother returns... My Lord, heed me. Without me, you and everything you love will perish in flames and screaming.’” He could recite it flawlessly.

  Selana was on her feet, pacing, her face pale.

  “No. Rhan’s a traitor. He hurt my family. I can’t believe...!”

  Mael was merciless, though his voice was gentle. “Try.”

  “My mother saw him!” The Lord’s voice cracked as she rounded on him. “She was raped, she was thrown down and beaten. Are you telling me she made that up?”

  “No, of course not.” His mind was working now: he was sketching it in as he spoke, every last detail. “But there are substances that can make people suggestible, and Rhan... well, he had most of them in his house. If Phylos used them...” In a flash, he realised something else. “Oh dear Gods. Why do you think the Council charged Rhan in the first place?”

  It was all fitting together now. It was like a rush, like those last few charcoal strokes when you realised that a drawing was going to be one of the best you’d done, when you had captured that moment absolutely flawlessly. Without quite knowing how, Mael found his hands on the Lord’s shoulders, and he drew back, startled by his own intensity.

  By the strength of his comprehension.

  His grey mood had burned away completely. He felt useful, as though he mattered, and he could do something to help.

  But as he let her go, Selana turned away and her face crumpled. He saw that her hands were tight, her teeth in her lower lip.

  Belatedly remembering his manners, he said, “Can I get you something? A drink? A cloth?”

  “No. Thank you.” She drew herself up and her eyes gave the kind of flash that told him to hold his peace and his distance. He wondered what he’d overdone - the information or the contact. Or both. But he was an old man and he was onto something here, though he hadn’t quite figured out how it fitted together. Lord or not, he was damned if he was going to apologise.

  Selana dropped her gaze, turned back into a girl.

  It was like a picture, lines around the outside sketching in towards the centre.

  Mael was feeling better than he had done in days, since Saravin had been hurt, in fact. He could hear the old sod now, teasing him and demanding they go for an ale. Shut up, he told the memory. I’m not done yet.

  The memory said to him, Oh yes you are.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Mael caught movement on the quiet street. Selana saw his glance and turned.

  She said, “Oh Gods. Do they come down here a lot?”

  “You need to leave.” He had forgotten her title, but neither of them cared. The tan commander Ythalla, she who had kicked down the door of the Angel only a few days before, would make short work of Mael’s little home. “Back way, there’s a communal cookhouse there, and a midden. It’ll stink a bit, but -”

  “I’ll manage.” She gathered her cloak and threw it about her shoulders. Her hands paused as she put up the cowl. She said, “Thank you. Saravin spoke of you sometimes, he said your eyes are the sharpest he’d ever known. He trusted you completely, in his own strange way.” She grinned briefly. “I wish...” But she had no words to complete the thought.

  He understood her anyway. “I’m sorry for your loss, my Lord,” he said. “For our loss. He spoke often of you too.” Again, that sense of fleeting but powerful opportunity, a need to say something that would open her eyes and her mind and make her think. “He said that you could be trusted to be fearless, and to do the right thing.”

  She mouthed the word “fearless”, then pulled the cowl up over her face.

  “You be fearless too,” she said. “Ythalla’s like some damned bweao, she’s nasty.” She laid her hand on his arm for a moment. “But she’s also stupid. Be strong,” she said, and she was gone.

  Be strong.

  When Mael turned to answer the door, he kept those words, that final touch, in his head.

  * * *

  They didn’t arrest him.

  Mael had found his glasses and he’d peered at the soldiers, carping and grumbling like some herb-addled elder. Disgusted, they’d searched the place and then gone on to bully the rest of the building.

  By the time they’d moved further down the road, he realised that he was fighting the urge to pace. Selana, it seemed, had been bright enough to flee safely, and he could shove his pince-nez higher up his nose and retrieve a piece of his precious parchment.

  He sat back down at his window, watching the moving tan through the slats of the shutters. His fingers retrieved his charcoal and started to draw.

  In his head, though, there was another picture - a picture that was coming swiftly together, but that he had to take apart into its individual lines.

  Phylos - hauling Rhan before the Council on drugs charges. The citizens of Fhaveon could be very pious about some things, and Rhan’s unsuitable behaviour had offended certain circles for many returns. All Phylos had done was make that knowledge much more public. He’d also gained a large amount of the drug for himself.

  The Merchant Master was as sharp and as merciless as a white-metal axe. He had held his peace, and held his peace, until all of this could happen at once - too fast for the city to gather its history and think, too fast for anyone to react. One moment, there was the Council, there was Rhan and Demisarr, and the next...

  Mael was becoming increasingly convinced that Rhan’s murder of his sworn protectorate, the rape of his wife, were a carefully crafted fiction - though he was not sure how. But what more flawless a set-up could there be? Valicia had watched her husband die, had been unable to save him, had been unable to save herself. And who would doubt her as an eye-witness?

  And with the Foundersson and his wife gone, it left only Mostak - Valiembor-blooded, commander of the military, one of the most powerful men in the Varchinde. The harvest tournament, the event that had killed both Cylearan and Saravin, had been the Merchant Master removing his last real obstacle.

  But why?

  The one question that Mael still couldn’t answer. “I hunger for power because I was bullied as a child” just wasn’t holding any water, here. Phylos was Archipelagan, he’d been born elite. Or thinking he was.

  For a moment, Mael’s thoughts turned again to the scarred woman, Jayr, and to the madman she’d guarded. He wondered if they were a part of this picture, and if so, where they fitted.

  But the picture in Fhaveon was too big, and he could not slot them into the image. Not yet.

  He looked back out at the road.

  The birds had come back, and they were pecking at something on the stones. He watched them absently for a moment, his mind and hands still sketching.

  Phylos’s manipulations were utterly flawless, equal parts calculated and savagely opportunistic. By controlling both the harvest and the soldiery...

  Mael paused. The birds continued to peck.

  The blight was the one thing that didn’t fit the pattern, didn’t fit with Phylos’s rise to power. The harvest was faltering, yet tithes and trades were still being demanded, and the
incoming goods were hoarded and held under guard. Messages from the surrounding CityWardens ranged from apologetic to hostile. Rumour on the road said that Larred Jade in Roviarath had ceased trading almost completely, and that his last bretir had carried a very curt message indeed.

  The birds once again took wing, climbing up into the grey air with cold caws of displeasure.

  Mael craned to see what had startled them.

  There was a figure in the roadway, two.

  He blinked, then took his glasses off so that he could see them clearly.

  And then he stared.

  The figures were not human. They stood on two legs, had two hands and two eyes, but they were not human.

  They were almost seven-foot tall, long-legged and barechested and walked with a peculiar, distinctive gait. Their skin was tanned, decorated with ink and leather. Their hair was long and black and elaborately braided, decorated with small fragments of bone, stone and fabric.

  Mael gawped, incredulous. The creatures were talking, laughing even. They had teeth like knives, eyes like roil and smoke. He had absolutely no idea what they could possibly be.

  Then he realised they were wearing the belts and blades of the Fhaveon soldiery.

  And they were coming down the road towards Mael’s little home.

  In his head, he heard Saravin, “Get out, you old fool!” He scrambled for a bag, for his charcoal and a handful of essential bits and pieces. There was food in the other room, he’d take what he could as he fled through the midden.

  Almost as an afterthought, he grabbed the sketch that he had been doing, leaving faint prints of charcoal on the parchment. He looked at it for a moment, before shoving it into his pack.

  He had drawn Jayr, scars and all.

  14: CREATURES CREATED GLEAM WOOD

  As they returned to their small and fireless camp, Amethea was on her feet. “By the Gods - what happened to you? You look like you found a war!”

  Ecko had no words. The thing with the human face that had known his name - he was scared, he was fucking scared already, and his own fear was making him angrier than he’d ever been. His adrenaline was still firing, more anxiety than elation, and he needed it to pack its bags and fuck off.

  Like now.

  Eck... Oh...

  Apparently, some Random Encounter Bad Guys weren’t so random after all.

  Well whaddaya know.

  “Tell me,” Triqueta said, “what’s got the face of a man, the tail of a serpent and the body of some sort of damned bweao?” Her bow was across her back, her blades still in her hands, and she was as wide-eyed as he was. “Because whatever it is, it better not have any friends.” The thing’s half-tail was in her belt - she slung a blade and threw the tail down, twitching, at Amethea’s feet.

  The teacher, her pale hair glimmering in the tree-light, caught it before it hit the mud.

  Lifting it, she said, “I can already tell you - I got given one of these last return.”

  “Jesus Hairy fucking Christ and little fucking fish!” Ecko was pacing like he’d never come down. His skin was crawling, and he couldn’t make it stop. Medusa, fucksake, chimera -whatever the hell that thing was - how come it knew his name when he couldn’t remember what he was supposed to call it?

  Funny, much?

  His mouth a tangle of black teeth and bitterness, he said, “What were you sayin’ about ancient legends? I think we just woke ’em all up.”

  “The Gleam Wood’s laden with superstition,” Amethea replied, looking at the still-twitching half-tail in her hand, her expression a twist of fascination and disgust. “The main trade-route to Annondor goes over land - the coast’s too rocky for triremes. Supposedly, this place hasn’t seen human feet in hundreds of returns.” She raised an eyebrow at them, held up the convulsing tail between thumb and forefinger. “Makes it the perfect place for pirates and smugglers... Are you even listening?”

  Ecko snarled at her. “Fuck the geography lesson. What the hell did we just find?”

  “And where’s Redlock?” Triqueta asked.

  “Scouting.” Amethea shook the tail, turned it round to look at its other side. “He went up the lookout tower to see as far as the coast.”

  Triq snorted. “He can see in the dark now?”

  Amethea shrugged. “He’d never admit it, but I think this place gives him the creeps.” The tail twitched again, shuddered. “Can’t imagine why.”

  Something in her voice brought the darkness to all of them - brought the awareness of the void of untrodden woodland, the ruins forgotten even to legend. Whatever really was out here, they were intruders, unknown and tiny against its time and history. Unconsciously, the three of them pulled together, peering outwards at the odd white light of the wood.

  Ecko was starting to shiver - anger and adrenaline and come-down. The injury on his face was beginning to hurt. He wondered, stupidly, if he needed antivenin, if the bite - lash? - was gonna mess with his bloodstream, if his face was gonna swell up like the fucking Elephant Man...

  Then his oculars caught it.

  Not the end, not the hentai-flick nightmare this tail-thing had for a head, but the mark on its skin, like a miniature brand - a mark that was familiar.

  Eck... Oh...

  For a moment he stared at it, his adrenaline still shuddering, making his belly knot with tension. Then he said, “Gimme that.” His targeters flashed and he grabbed it from Amethea, lifting it to see.

  It writhed like a live thing. He had to look twice to be sure he’d gotten it right.

  Eck... Oh...

  But there was no fucking mistake about it - the thing bore the same craftmark as the terhnwood blade that had taken them to Sarkhyn’s lab.

  * * *

  Redlock lay flat on the rock at the top of the lookout tower.

  The rain had soaked into his garments, chilled his skin, plastered his hair to his face, but none of it mattered - not even the precious etched metal of his axeheads, now resting still against cold stone.

  He lay in a silent jumble of disbelief, staring at the edge of the woodland and at the glitter of the eastern sea.

  And at what lay between.

  Over him, the clouds were thinning and the moons reached fingers of light through the gaps - prying apart the grey to look down at the rocky shoreline below. Their light glimmered on the seethe and rush of the water, on the spray that flew from the rocks.

  And on the citadel that was standing there.

  At the very edge of the world.

  He hadn’t seen it at first, but now he could look almost nowhere else - it was compelling, impossible, a wide, low shadow upon the glitter of the water. It was angled walls and shaped stone creatures, the last forgotten sentinel of the Varchinde plain.

  And, even in the moonlight, he could see it was not a ruin.

  He had no idea what it could be - some dream, some figment - some echo of his manor lord past come back to haunt him. Even as the axeman was telling himself not to be so cursed stupid, he was staring at it in disbelief, almost expecting it to thin and fade, to spread out upon the dark water and be gone.

  But he was awake, and cold, and sober. And the cursed thing was still right there - the plains’ last outpost, the forgotten city.

  Forgotten, his right buttock. If it wasn’t a ruin, then someone - something - was damned well living in it.

  Swarming backwards on his belly, covering himself in muck, he found that his hands were on his axes, sliding with unexplained sweat. His knuckles were white and he wanted to cough.

  To cough and cough and cough until the dust in his chest all cleared.

  Until that cursed shadow-citadel was no longer there.

  Or until its Lord damned well showed itself.

  He paused where he was, body wracking with silent spasm. One hand went over his mouth, smothering any chance of noise. When the spasm receded, he glanced back at the water, at the building that loomed there, walls black against the shine.

  It was hard to see in only the moon
light, but there seemed to be some sort of gatehouse, crenellations elaborate, at the mouth of the river - a building like nothing else he’d ever seen. And behind it a walkway? Or steps? They were almost impossible to make out.

  For a moment, he was tempted to slide down the seaward side of the upthrust rock - to go out into the open, closer, and to see what in the name of every cursed God they’d found out here... But then something else caught his attention.

  Movement.

  They were below him, right below him, skirting the edge of the lookout tower - they’d closed almost about his feet without him realising. The moonlight was fading now, the clouds closing back over their prey, but he could see them, creeping between the ruins and heading for his camp.

  Shit.

  As silent as he could, he pushed himself back to his feet and slipped down the far side of the rock, boots scraping on the slippery stone, looking for a foothold. He tore his overtunic on the stone, but made it down without mishap. He eased around the edge of the rock to see what awaited him, here in the cold nacre of the Gleam Wood.

  And then the white moon surged through the cloud cover, just for a moment, and he realised what he was looking at.

  These were not villagers, not brimstone-hoarding pirates.

  These were something else.

  Redlock swallowed bile, smothered another cough.

  Name of the Gods!

  Here, in among the ruins of the buildings, there were the ruins of flesh.

  These people were emaciated, thin to the point of starvation. Their garments were torn and their skin sun-darkened and cracking with dryness and salt. He could see now that their bodies were wrong - they had eyes in the wrong places, mouths in cheeks or shoulders, arms that ended in raw and bleeding wounds. Some were streaked with fluid; others had wound lengths of the flowering grasses about their heads or throats. A few bore weapons, clumsy and worn.

  The axeman shuddered. The dark was pressing down upon him. He wanted to cough, but didn’t dare move, or make a sound.

  “Lost, are we?”

  Starting, he spun.

  Standing beside him, half-hidden by moon-shadow, was a cloaked figure, a cowl covering its hair. It was tall, impossibly so, and what Redlock could see of its face was strong and tanned and smiling.