by Danie Ware
“Triq!” Amethea was moving. “You okay?”
“Stay there!” The scrape was a nasty one, warmth oozed down her shin. She needed to finish this damned thing - and fast.
Her right hand moved, a lunge towards its groin, but the motion was a feint - she got her left hand on the shaft of the spear. Using it to brace herself, she slammed one long boot round, hard, into the side of the thing’s skull. The impact jarred her knee, but the creature fell back, shaking its head.
But Triq still had hold of the spear. If its grip lessened, even for a moment -
Then her back went into spasm, dropping her like a rock.
In a moment of horrible clarity, she realised she’d pushed herself too far kicking down the door - her body simply couldn’t take it any more. I’m too old for this, for Gods’ sakes! A sharp stab of pain shot through her spine and flank. She was on her knees, frozen like some damned crippled elder and she absolutely could not move.
The creature stood over her, grinning, teeth gleaming.
It knew that she was helpless and it was drawing it out, enjoying it.
From somewhere behind her, Amethea was moving. With a loco disregard for anything resembling sense, the girl came past her as if she was going to tackle the beast herself...
...but she didn’t get time.
The creature dropped the spear completely and threw itself at Triq, bearing her to the stone floor, wrenching her back and making her spit shards of pain.
She hit the ground twisted, one leg caught under her, couldn’t move.
And it was over her like a lover, hard muscled and grinning, its breath fecund and steam-warm. The spirals on its skin writhed and it shifted its weight, fought to get her arms over her head.
Furious, she jack-knifed, not caring about the pain. She tried to free her leg, twist, throw the beast from her, hoped that Amethea would have the courage to pick the spear up and impale the damned thing clean through...
Then Triqueta realised what it wanted.
Dear Gods!
She’d felt this once before, this exact sensation, this odd pull of sensuousness and helplessness and loss and elation. This peculiar, nauseous drawing of her soul from her flesh.
Like Tarvi, the damn thing was stealing her time.
Now, her fury edged on panic - she had no more damned time to spare. Tarvi had robbed her of returns, this thing would kill her, drain her to ash and bared bone, just like the damned skeletons in the cells. She thrashed, got one hand free, wrapped it around the beast’s neckthongs and twisted, knotting them round her knuckles and driving them upwards into its throat.
Make me a damned victim, will you?
Its eyes bulged, its grip lessened. The pulling sensation stopped and it shifted its weight - it was all Triq needed.
Amethea had the spear in her hands but hesitated, not really knowing where to stick it. Triq twisted out from under the creature, threw it down and sideways and shouted, “Thea! Now! Now!”
With surprising strength, Amethea jabbed the spear at the creature’s flank.
It shrieked, but the tip glanced from a rib, gave it a nasty triangular tear. It reached out a hand, grappled to get its spear back but Amethea was too fast. With a shudder, she kicked it in the face.
Triqueta cheered, giving it the ululating warcry of the Banned - then realised that whatever was on the tower would hear her and come running.
They were out of time.
Literally.
Triq was on her feet in a moment, ignoring the sickening twinge in her back. She took the spear from Amethea and rammed it, point first, into the beast’s mouth, straight back into its skull.
Its hooves kicked, just for a moment, then it collapsed.
It didn’t move again.
* * *
Now, my estavah, my brother, now is the beginning of all things. With the creation we have before us, so do all things change.
We’ve done well.
The creature in Amal’s mind was stronger now, stronger than it had ever been. It was there, always there, teasing at the forefront of his thoughts. It caressed the barrier between them with sharp fingers of heat and impatience. It was starving, a predator stalking for lust and sustenance. It was all he could do to remember where it ended and he began.
Yet he remained academic, emotionless - he knew what would happen if he lost control. It craved freedom, and its hunger, its naked want, was too close to the surface for it to conceal.
The creature had no interest in his learning, his crafting, in building armies. The creature wanted its freedom - it wanted to master the destruction itself.
Ecko was the key to its cell, and its expectation burned fervent and silent and white-hot.
But as the creature had played Amal to bring Ecko to Aeona, so Amal had played it in return - without its strength and insight, he would not have the manifest skills for his crafting. Flex and stretch, their pact had always worked this way. They craved time, both of them. Amal craved it to further his own, to learn and study and craft; his creature craved it to feed its strength, to one day shatter Amal’s control and break free.
Their bargain had been a balance, and down through long returns, the delicate tilt and shift played on.
Now, that balance was to be tested. Ecko was its pivot, and Amal would not have liked to guess its outcome.
Yet he must retain control.
Peace, he told the creature, wait. There is knowledge to be gained, a new army to be crafted. New creatures and figments, new nightmares.
The creature snarled at him, We will bring war!
I will give you your war, but in my own time. Wait!
It sneered at him but subsided, fading backwards, almost out of touch. Yet that sense of want remained, shimmering faint and hot and cruel. It teased him like the tip of a brand, like a noise in the background that he couldn’t quite shut out.
You will do what I say, my creature. Lore must be gathered, and used to greatest effect.
Amal walked slowly round the strange, mottle-skinned, fibre-muscled little man, his back held hard against the stone, his wrists and ankles caught motionless. The shadows of the gargoyles made the colours of his skin shift, almost as if they tried to stay out of the sun.
Tell me how to burn it down.
The little man’s eagerness felt uncannily like the creature’s own.
Ecko bared his teeth, said, “So? Let’s get this road on the show.”
He thinks as I do. The creature was still there, coiling and rustling like laughter at the back of Amal’s thoughts. Yes, yes, yes...
I said, you will wait!
Ecko clanked his wrists against the metal. “Gimme the sulphur or whatever. Let’s go.”
Amal chuckled. “The brimstone has served its purpose - we make new weapons here.” He smiled passionless, took Ecko’s chin in his hand and said, “Weapons of flesh.”
Ecko’s sneer grew. “Chrissakes, what d’you want? My user manual?”
I like this one. The creature’s lingering humour was like greed. He’s funny. And then that laughter was suddenly gone, torn down, closed away, and it was surging forwards once more, as if Amal’s barriers and controls meant nothing.
Now open him.
The force of the command sent a sharp shock through the alchemist’s flesh, brought a sudden, hot taste to his mouth. In his head, the creature was rising, sudden and terrible, surging to full power. Destruction came with it, surrounded it, images of flame and crumbling walls, of tiny people fleeing hopeless.
Why play petty games, pieces of what must come? You will gain your greatest learning with your greatest action! We must bring war to the Varchinde now - we must rise now!
Wait! Amal had long returns of control. He’d lived with the creature since the days of Tusien and now he strove to hold it back. He did not dare flinch, even for a moment. If he weakened, that pivot would turn, and it would tear him from the inside out.
The burning was inevitable, but it was also eventual. He would not
relinquish the opportunity.
Amal was a master, creator of chearl, of nartuk, of bretir, of creatures half-human and of humans half-creature... understanding Ecko was imperative.
I must know it all!
Ecko was his life’s opportunity. He was insight, an ultimate creation. To win understanding of that lore, Amal was prepared to risk playing the creature’s game as far as it suited him to do so, to dare the creature’s hunger and greed.
Here on the table - this was the thing they both craved, the thing they’d lured to the midden city.
This node. This critical point.
Yes! The creature was raging now, passion and power -anticipating its freedom and the devastation it would wreak. Now! Now!
No! I am in control here! Amal fought back, fought harder than he ever had -
There came a sudden cry from the courtyard below -unexpected, petrifying the striving as if it were suddenly set in stone. The voice was high and female, defiant and angry. For a moment, both Amal and the creature paused in disbelief - and then the alchemist cursed, with frustration and anger.
The creature fed on his emotions, revelled in them.
Birds on the parapet took flight, cawing in distress.
Amal spun, startled and furious and forcing the feelings away. He ran for the top of the long steps, his heart thundering, his blood playing tunes of fear. He had no staff here other than the crafted vialer; there was no one else in Aeona.
In his mind, his creature coiled and hissed. It liked his outrage and it made it stronger.
What is this? Its voice was hotter now, eager. What is this new thing that comes? That makes you so... angry?
Feet on the steps. Amal paused at their head, stared down at the small, bright figure that was racing upwards, at these crazed creatures that challenged the moment of his greatest breakthrough.
There was a woman, small and slight and strong and desert-blooded, eyes as bright as the yellow sun, the opal stones in her cheeks burning with indignation.
The creature was laughing at him now. Her time is good, Amal. I remember this one, I remember her taste. Bring her, bring them both...
Amal heard its lust in his own pulse-beat, in the tattoo of alarm drumming in his skin.
Behind the desert woman came a second figure, younger, pale-haired and quite beautiful. The creature’s laughter rose, but Amal had paused as if the Count of Time himself had cupped his grey hands over the gargoyles on the tower...
Waiting.
Triqueta. Amethea.
Banished to the city’s cellars because he had no desire to craft with either of them. Their time may yet feed him - them -but these two had no further use.
They had seen him now, and they were running.
Bring them to me now. The Count of Time is upon us, Amal! Rhan rises; he comes to face me down and he comes with power. My old army rises, your creatures and creations from returns gone, locked into the Fhaveon stone. The city stands ready for my return!
The creature’s usual mental caress, its coaxing tones of “my brother, my estavah”, were gone, shredded in the gale of eagerness and elation.
My return.
Not “our”.
No more games, Amal realised. No more tilt and shift.
In his chest, his heart seemed to freeze. The Count of Time held his hands still.
Waiting.
For that striving of soul against soul. For that tiny pivot that would turn either way, and affect the pattern of all things.
Then the two women reached the top of the steps.
Triqueta was upon Amal in an instant, her captured spear at his throat, words racing from her angered mouth.
“I know you. From the hanging, in the house in Amos - this some game, is it?” The word was an accusation. “What the rhez have you done with my friends?”
Amethea, behind her, stared at the table, at the crouching stone grotesques that watched it so carefully. Her hand was over her mouth, then she too, was spilling words. “What the rhez are you doing?”
Take them both! The creature raged, rising and fighting against his flesh, his fetters of will that held it in place. I am out of time, Amal! Take them both, take them -!
“Silence!” Amal barked the order, sending the creature reeling like a rolling weed, stopping both women in their tracks. “This is Aeona and this is my home! I say what goes here!” Triqueta aimed the spear at his chin. “I don’t think so. Where are my friends, you...”
He stepped back, with a taunting gesture that was almost a bow.
“Shit!” Ecko was twisting his body awkwardly on the stone table, trying to look round. “What the hell’re you doing?”
“Ecko!” Triqueta was running now, relieved, spear still in her hands. “I should slit your damned throat myself!”
“Fucking nick-of-time-rescue bullshit. Don’t you fucking dare.”
She stopped as if he’d slapped her. “What?”
Struggling to sit up, failing, Ecko snarled at both of them, a wraith of darkness and fire and savagery.
“Don’t you fucking dare come up here.” He twisted further against metal and stone. “You’re too fucking late. I’m done with this, all of it. I’m done doing what I’m told, being the good guy, saving the world. I’m gonna burn it all the fuck down, show Eliza just what she can do with her Virtual fucking Rorschach!”
The creature was alight now, blazing, its lust and wonder burning like a plainswide fire. Yes! Now! You must do this now!
But Amal was still fighting, still thinking. He had to have time - not stolen time, but the time to take back control of this crazed tableau, both internal and external.
He moved back, stood at Ecko’s head, a blade across his throat, and said, “Either of you as much as breathe, he dies.” And you, he said to the creature, will gain no time or strength from his blood-letting. So be silent!
The creature raged at him, furious. It understood, in that gesture, that it had not fooled or led him, that he had absolutely no intention of letting it loose, that he prized his lore above all things.
And so the last pitch and sway of their long bargain began.
Triqueta paused, the spear held steady in cracked hands.
Amethea said, “Horseshit. We’ll take our chances. He’s tougher than you realise - and you’re going to kill him anyway. Or you’ll try to.”
Triqueta chuckled. “If you don’t want to be impaled like an eager bride, step away.”
But Ecko was shouting at them. “Chrissakes, are you two fucking deaf? I don’t want a fucking rescue. You hear me?”
“By the rhez, Ecko, do you have to make everything as difficult as possible?” Without moving the spear-point, Triqueta fumed her exasperation. “We’re your friends, we came here because we love you, because we won’t abandon you” - her expression shadowed for a moment - “because we don’t walk out on family. You’re a part of us, Ecko, we’ve been through the rhez together, and come out the other side. This... man,” she pointed with the spear though Ecko couldn’t see, “this man made the centaurs, he made the mwenar you burned in the alchemist’s hall. He’s Maugrim’s master, for the Gods’ sakes! Which side are you even on?”
“Side?” Ecko snorted, twisted again against the table. “Good and Evil, whatever, yadda yadda - you people are so fucking naïve. We’re not the good guys - we caused the blight. And I’m not jumping through any more ‘good boy’ hoops. I am what I am: misfit, casualty, creature created, creature of chaos. I don’t know names any more and I don’t care. What I do know is that I’m done sucking Eliza’s cock. And if that means the world burns - then let it burn. I’m Ecko - and I’m gonna do whatever it takes to stay that way.” He turned, shouted up and past the gargoyles above him. “This program? Has failed.”
INTERLUDE: THE FATE OF THE WANDERER
THE BIKE LODGE, LONDON
Karine had been having nightmares.
White light, rage and flame, passion so powerful it had woken her, sweating and shaking, and she’d lef
t her chamber to pace the silent and empty floors of The Wanderer.
To feel the warmth of the building fading even as she needed it.
The Wanderer was hurting. Cracks ran through its walls, spreading with each day, each rumble of vehicle. Its captivity was impossible - she could feel its hurt grow steadily worse. Roderick and Lugan were gone, the Bard was with Ecko’s “Mom”, the commander gone after Ecko himself. She’d lost little Silfe, Kale had died on the streets of the city, and Sera was fading fast.
Karine wanted wine, a means to lessen her haunting horrors. She knew it wasn’t a solution, but she was drinking it anyway - and with the taste in her mouth and the carafe in her hand, she paced, her fingers brushing the scars of the silent tabletops.
The bar itself was broken, her neat rows of stock shattered and left where they’d fallen. The windows were askew, they no longer fitted. Looking at it all, she found it hard to breathe.
The harsh white lights flickered as the huge, overhead rumble came again. The tavern shook with the racket. Trails of dust fell from the rafters, more pottery smashed.
The sound cut like shards - like everything she loved and knew was coming to pieces. With another slug of red, she took herself away from the damage, fled down into the cellars, anything to get away from the emptiness and fear and harm that lurked above.
She felt like her nightmare was real, like Kas Vahl Zaxaar himself was rising in her heart.
Walking, like wine, helped to clear her agitation.
The cellars were warm, their familiarity settling. It felt safe down here, shielding her from the layers of impossibility over her head. Slowly, a sense of ease began to creep through her muscles, unknotting her chest and throat. Her heart began to slow.
Everything would be all right - the Bard had never let her down, he’d always been there. He was her friend, her protector, her eccentric uncle and she knew he would find a way to fix this.
If he would only come home.
She should find something to do, maybe, take her mind from her own uselessness. A stocktake could take days - she had no idea how long it had been since she’d done the job properly...
