Ecko Burning

by Danie Ware

  By the rhez!

  Understanding went through her like a shock - suddenly their haphazard trail seemed oddly, frighteningly deliberate. Triqueta didn’t know if they’d been led or sent - she tried to think through a tumble of connections to work out how they’d come to be here. Nivrotar had wanted a weapon. And Ecko had found that yellow brimstone crystal...

  ...in the alchemist’s house.

  Dear Gods.

  She shivered, her skin suddenly prickling despite the heat. “The alchemist - Sarkhyn.” The words were no more than a breath, an exhalation of shock. “Thea...”

  But Amethea was pointing at another frieze. She was trembling and pale, her navy eyes wide, sharing Triqueta’s shock.

  “Triq, look! Can you see what it is! Saint and Goddess!” Her hands went to her mouth as if to hold back a torrent of shock and words.

  Triq almost didn’t want to know.

  The wall was overgrown, the creeper sliding across it as if trying to hide its secrets. She reached out with a flaking, itching hand and pulled it away.

  Then she stopped dead, her heart screaming in her ears. She felt sick.

  I know what that is.

  Centaur.

  Rearing and powerful, its claws splayed as if to tear the stone asunder - the damned thing was huge, like the stallion, like the creatures that had fought them at the Monument, Maugrim’s watch-beasts...

  Amethea was talking, words falling over themselves. “How could we have been this stupid?” She was looking about around her, eyes wide, the sunlight glimmering from her pale hair. “Maugrim told us he didn’t make them. He said -”

  “We’re damned fools, the lot of us. It all fits. Whoever -whatever - this CityWarden is -”

  “Whoever’s here, they made all of this. The centaurs, the mwenar, the chearl. Everything.” Amethea brushed her fingers over the friezes, turned to look at her friend. “But then... we can’t be here by chance, surely? How did we...?”

  Her shock was visible, a reflection of Triq’s own.

  “I’m starting to wonder,” Triqueta said grimly. “Pieces of a story, all suddenly fitting into place. We came here following Ecko, following Nivrotar’s need for weapons.”

  Amethea stared. “You think she sent us -?”

  “I don’t know what to think, not yet,” Triq told her. “But by the rhez, I’m going to get to the bottom of this, and I’m going to find the others before the Gods alone know what happens to them.” She yanked up another bunch of creeper, pale flowers wide open, like bright eyes. “Before they get made into something, for Gods’ sakes.”

  Amethea said, softly, “Or before we do.”

  The remainder of the rooms that surrounded the courtyard were empty, their occupants the same scattered and broken remains. Despite Triqueta’s fears, they found no black eyes or teeth among the scattered bones of the Varchinde’s lost, no red hair.

  Amethea had picked up a loose fingerbone, was turning it in her grip as if she sought an answer, needed to follow a thought through to its ending. Something about the deaths of these people was bothering her, something that didn’t yet fit the emerging pattern - but she didn’t seem to know what it was.

  Triqueta, keeping an eye on the tower above them, only knew that this was all damned crazed. She understood her share of city politics and gaming - and here she was, beginning to wonder how they’d really come here, whom she could trust, what dice were being rolled - and by whose hands. This place was crawling her flesh, taunting and worrying her. There were figments still in her mind; still lurking in the creeper-grown spirals that seemed to be everywhere she looked.

  Creatures created.

  Amethea said, “There’s nothing still living down here. If I had to guess, I’d say this was the reject pile. Those that the CityWarden didn’t want to... to make into anything.” She was still frowning at the fingerbone.

  “Meaning the ones on the clifftop were - what? The failures?” Triqueta shuddered.

  Amethea shrugged, grimaced. “It makes sense.”

  In several places clumsy marks had been scraped into the wall - forgotten sigils made by the desperate and the dying, last messages that would never be read, or understood.

  Amethea touched a fingertip to one of them, said, “This place is old, Tusienic probably.” She glanced at Triqueta from the corner of her eye. “What did he show you? In your nightmare I mean? What did you see?”

  Not meeting the look, Triq was scanning the high stairs, looking for the ambush, the creatures that guarded the exit -or the entrance.

  “Whoever rules here, I think he likes to make people victims.”

  Amethea dropped her gaze back to her bone.

  “And no one is doing that to me,” Triq said. “Or to you. I want to find this CityWarden and have a little word in his ear. Assuming he has ears. Maybe I’ll carve him some more, just to be on the safe side.”

  She thought that Amethea would say something more, comment on her lack of sharp objects, ask her how she, of all people, could have been made to feel like a victim, but the girl only nodded.

  Then, at the bottom of the wide steps, there was movement.

  * * *

  Ecko was not home.

  This was not the Bike Lodge, not a hospital bed, not some mass of ’trodes and scanning gear. It wasn’t Grey’s base - he wasn’t plugged into the world of anywhere-but-here. There wasn’t a fractal fucking algorithm in sight.

  Instead, Ecko could see sky.

  He expected a rush of dejection, a momentary flash of outrage that he hadn’t managed to bust and bullshit his way outta here, that he hadn’t broken the program.

  But all he managed was a certain wry lack of surprise. Nah. Too many layers for that shit.

  Ok, let’s do this. Let’s see whatcha got.

  He was flat on his back, his wrists and ankles now held in metal, his skin against cold stone. Over him, the sky was bright and blue, incongruously summer; the air was stifling-still. Around this platform, whatever it was, there rose some sort of wall or parapet, and from it reared carved creatures - gargoyles clawed and fanged, but worn and ragged with age. They peered over at him, casting odd shadows.

  Behind them, birds wheeled in the sky.

  Chrissakes, if they didn’t come to life and try and eat him before all this was over, then Ecko was a monkey’s fucking cross-dressing uncle.

  But the stone creatures didn’t articulate, manifest or puke; their blind eyes continued to stare at nothing, pointless and without end.

  Then movement made him turn his head.

  There was someone up here with him - but that someone, thank fuck, was not Eliza. Instead, he could see the calm, thoughtful face of an older man, one of his eyes covered by an embroidered patch. He was greying at the temples, his hair tied back, and a series of leather thongs hung about his throat. Tattoos covered his face, they moved lazily under his skin, shifting as he advanced through sunlight and shadow.

  He looked like an old hippie - and Ecko had seen him before.

  Yeah, I know you...

  Younger but still with the eye-patch, he’d been on the silk hanging in the house where they’d found the burning dead McBeastie with the four arms - and the sulphur.

  Coincidence, apparently, had packed its bags and gone on vacation.

  Great, so I walked into a fucking trap.

  Now what?

  But the man showed no response to Ecko’s curiosity, he only walked around where he lay. He was in no hurry, humming tuneless snatches of something between thoughtfully pursed lips.

  Ecko spoke, a rasping mutter. “Know anything by BiFrost?”

  “What?” The man paused, as if surprised at the interruption. He blinked for a moment at his specimen spread-eagled, hands and feet held fast in metal clasps that even Lugan couldn’t’ve busted his way out of.

  Ecko bared his gap. “If you’re gonna try an’ torture me some more, I reckon I get to pick the music. Y’know, last wish an’ all that?”

  The man stepped b
ack. “Last wish?” The words seemed to puzzle him. “Ah, Ecko.” His voice was scholarly, objective and calm. “I’ve worked very hard to bring you here and you surpass everything I could have dreamed. The figments have shown you some interesting nightmares and they’ve taught me much - who you are, where you’re from. And what you want.” He flickered a smile. “Which is where I - we - can help.”

  “Jesus.” Ecko groaned. “Spare me the cryptic willya? If you’re gonna peel my skin off” - he lifted his head, grinned - “go ahead. Give it your best shot.”

  The man’s single eyebrow came up in surprise.

  “Ecko, you once made a threat.” There was a yellow glitter, sunlight on stone, and the tiny sulphur crystal was in the man’s hand. It shone like a promise, like gold, like the opal stones in Triqueta’s cheeks. “And we’ve got the potential for you to fulfil that threat. You can own this world, or you can break it. You can do anything you wish.” His smile deepened. “And yes, if you want to, you can burn it all down.”

  Burn it all down.

  For a moment, his long outrage was there in the sunlight, real and immediate. He was thrumming with it, lost for a sharp comeback. The stone caught the light like a promise.

  Burn it all down.

  The man stepped forwards, laid a hand on his flank as if feeling his response. The gesture was paternal, possessive, oddly eager.

  “We want to help you, Ecko. We want to help you make it burn.”

  His voice was soft as blackening paper, as ash falling like snow. He was way too close and way too eager and his enticement was like flame, like the Sical. He was freaking Ecko the fuck out.

  “You wanna help me?” Ecko snarled. “Let me the fuck up.”

  The man laughed, a sound that had an odd, bass undertone - as though something else laughed with him and in him. We.

  He said, “You want to make people fear you, respect you, make them know you’re there, in the shadows, stalking the rooftops.” The laugh rolled around the walls, rose into the bizarrely blue sky. “You want music? We can turn your name into the single greatest legend the Varchinde has ever voiced.” The hand stroked him, predatory. “We can show you how to burn it all. If you’ll trust us.”

  The thought was as bright as the little crystal, dancing with light, with tangible temptation. Ecko was caught by it, staring at it, his rage still clamouring in his head... Could he hear screaming?

  But the sound was gone under the man’s thrum of enticement and power.

  “You can help us, Ecko, help us recraft the Varchinde entire. Help us with madness, with war. With weapons.” His voice was oddly calm, though that throb of hunger was there, buried deep. “I talk of crafting the greatest creations of my long life, of watching them rise and fight with your help. I talk of taking control of all that your Eliza - our World Goddess - has made here. You can own it, Ecko, you can make it yours to do with as you wish. You can be free of your real tormentor.”

  Your real tormentor.

  Eliza. World Goddess.

  The crystal turned, glittered. The hand was hot on his skin. Ecko shifted on the cold stone of the table, turned as best he could to look the man in his single eye. The tattoos writhed like familiars, sliding up his throat and into his face, sliding under the eye-patch like worms after a feast. The hidden eye was a ball of heat, like steam. Warmth seethed under the man’s skin. Whatever he was, he was no more fucking human than the chimera-thing from the woods.

  Burn it, own it, anything.

  In his head, it was already burning - the grass, the trade-roads, the markets and the cities. He could see it, he could smell the smoke as he had smelled Pareus’s melting flesh.

  Struggling against the image, though not even sure still why, Ecko managed, “Who the hell are you?”

  The man laughed again, his hands still exploring Ecko’s skin with a clinical interest that was somehow more chilling than any blades or threats.

  “Me? I’m Amal, the Spectator, the Host, many other things. I was outcast from Amos in the days after Tusien fell, made exile and pariah for practices of forbidden alchemy.” The patting became a stroke, a fine touch that ran down the centre of Ecko’s chest. “I came here, to Aeona. And I struck a bargain so my learning would not be wasted.”

  “So - what?” The man was back to using “I” not “we” -and Ecko was trying to clear his thoughts and focus. He so wasn’t thinking about the crystal, about the rise of the Sical, about the burning Monument, wasn’t thinking about any of it. He strove to concentrate, to find his voice, remember who he was. “Why do you wanna let me burn stuff, anyway? You the bad guy?”

  Amal smiled. “The ‘bad guy’? I’m just a craftsman, Ecko, I need to learn. I create things - just to prove they can be made. The burning,” he shrugged, academic and careless, “is inevitable.”

  Inevitable.

  The flame in Ecko’s head was higher now, the glitter of the sulphur crystal, the roar of the Fawkes’ night fire, the rage and hunger and glory of the Sical. He had to blink to focus, to see the sun and the sky.

  Fighting to keep his mind clear, he said, like a last hand clutching the windowsill of sanity, “Maugrim -”

  “Maugrim was a visionary, a wielder of an ancient art not entirely unlike my alchemy, in its own way. He ’prenticed to me, when first he came here. He would have cleansed the Varchinde, Ecko, if you’d let him. He would have ushered in the new age it so desperately craves, the new age that Phylos now heralds from the high walls of Fhaveon.” Amal shook his head, sorrowful. “And you killed him - you brought the blight upon us all. Kazyen is come, the nothing, the death of emptiness - and we will all die” - he leaned forward to whisper - “unless we burn first.”

  Crops, burning. Grass, burning. His own flesh, burning under the sun. The Varchinde, wildfires across the plains.

  Inevitable.

  Held there, skin to the stone, that stroking touch still travelling down the centre of his chest and his mind full of fire, Ecko said, “Tell me. Tell me how to burn it down.”

  19: THE STORM BREAKS FHAVEON

  The hospice in Fhaveon embraced Mael like an old friend.

  As the scent of the place filled his nostrils, herbal incense and astringent cleaners never quite masking the melted-together taint of blood and pain and hope, he remembered being a younger man, bucking his responsibilities and playing hookey over the back wall. Those had been days of too much ale and not enough study - as he looked around the calm quiet of the colonnades, they seemed suddenly very close.

  He smiled, momentarily uncaring of the red robes of the Merchant Master, of Selana’s pale hair that gleamed gently in the rocklight, uncaring of the heavily armed pair of goons that followed them. Simpler times, he thought to himself, when the great city of Fhaveon seemed all sea air and sunshine.

  Now, the city simmered with outrage and fear, a rising fury that boiled just under her rattling lid, threatened to detonate and tear the very rock asunder, to rive the city down to her stone foundations.

  With the closing of the market, the people had had enough. Their livelihoods had gone, they could not trade - and they could not secure what they needed to survive. Haphazard kitchens had sprung up on street corners and were doing their best to feed the city’s roving and restless, but they, too, struggled with the lack of trade-space and with the threatened withdrawal of farm-tithes. Mael knew little about the convolutes of the trade-cycle, but he knew that it was falling to pieces.

  In the city, there were voices on every corner, calling for uprise and retribution. They were too many for Ythalla and her forces to counter - as she rode after one, it would melt into the stone around it and another would rise, somewhere else, sounding the same rally. For the moment, they had no cohesion - but Mael knew that the time was coming when they would muster. All they needed was the right voice.

  All around them, bloodshed lurked, circling the island calm of the hospice. And it seemed that the apothecaries and herbalists of the building knew this all too well.

 
Phylos’s presence brought tension to the cool air of the healing house.

  “My Lord.” The senior apothecary, younger than Mael and his face unknown, ignored the Merchant Master completely and responded instead to Selana’s slightly hesitant authority. “You’ve come to see your uncle?”

  There was an edge in his voice that might have been hope.

  “I trust he’s well?” Phylos’s voice was cold. The young apothecary gave him a look of dislike.

  “As well as can be expected.”

  Had Mael imagined it, or had that comment been laden with implication? As Phylos took the lead, striding down the corridor, the others almost tumbling in his flowing red wake, Mael caught the eye of the young man and gave him a barely perceptible wink. The man started, stared, then looked away.

  As Phylos turned through an archway and down a short flight of stone steps, the apothecary recollected himself and addressed him accordingly. “It’s well to see you back here, Merchant Master. We have concerns -”

  With a gesture, Phylos cut him short. He turned through another archway and Mael saw a plaque on the overhead wall inscribed with an old sigil, ten-sided like the High Cathedral itself.

  Many times, as a young man, he had wondered at that correlation. He wished he had the leisure to wonder now.

  Selana ventured, “My uncle...?”

  “He’s resting,” the apothecary said. “Though I fear he’s less than himself. His... heart is troubling him and he’s very weak.”

  His heart, Mael wondered, as they passed under the archway and the sigil and kept walking. Mostak had been training from when he was old enough to hold a spear. There was still Archipelagan blood in Valiembor veins - they were strong, there was no history of a weakness to the heart in the family.

  “Poor man.” Phylos’s comment was bleak. He turned through several corners, came to stop by a door. “Brother Mael, you will wait here.” He caught the eyes of the goons and they nodded, unspeaking.