Ecko Burning

by Danie Ware

  “Chrissakes, don’t. You -”

  “Shut up!” She rounded on him, voice breaking. “Roderick was right - this is all your fault! We should have stayed with Syke, stayed in Roviarath. This has been loco - all for nothing. Nothing! What have we gained from coming here?”

  Her yellow gaze was too much, and he looked at his hands, colours shifting.

  Something behind them rumbled and the ground shook.

  The others were behind him now, scattered and unsure. As Ecko looked back up, the shadow of the keep shifted and changed. The rumble became a roar and stonework fell, harsh and splitting. From somewhere came a long, rumbling crash as masonry hit the ground. There was a splash, another, the heavy slosh of water.

  Chrissakes. We gotta move.

  But Triqueta was walking out to meet the monster.

  Amethea came to a halt by Ecko. She stared, shocked, horrified. Then swallowed, muttered, “You can’t let her go out there...”

  But Ecko shook his head. He was shaking, sickness or reaction or adrenaline, he didn’t even know.

  Triqueta walked to the creature.

  And the creature came to meet her, like something out of a particularly twisted soap opera.

  It was chearl-bodied, bulky in comparison to the monsters he’d seen before. Its torso was of normal, human size, powerfully muscled and heavily scarred, but the two had been joined poorly - the thing looked like it had been jammed together by an impatient child with plastic cement.

  But even that was not what made Ecko stare, what made Amethea catch her voice in a sob and bury her face in his shoulder. He patted her, stupidly, his brain reeling.

  He knew who this was.

  The creature’s bitter, confused expression was so human. His hair and hands were the same ones that they’d known through their long journeys together. He still had his axes. But the look in his eyes...

  The keep shuddered again and the ledge behind them crashed, making Ecko start and his adrenals jackhammer an insane, impossible tattoo.

  Karine was on her feet, shouting, “We have to go, we have to go!” but the Bard, too, had come to stand by Ecko and Amethea.

  He said, his voice as dark as the falling shadow ahead of them, “We should know how he feels.”

  Triqueta reached the monster. It towered over her - she extended her hand to it.

  Ecko heard her speak to it, even through the sounds of destruction that surrounded them.

  She said, “Redlock?”

  * * *

  Her mind wouldn’t take it in. He was there, he was warm and flesh and his face was the same, his heavy shoulders, the scattering of grey-threaded red hair down the centre of his chest, the heavy scar given to him by Maugrim’s chain.

  She said, “Redlock?”

  She extended a hand, but couldn’t bring herself to actually touch him. It would make him real, and he couldn’t be, he couldn’t be. This was another figment, like her sire, like the boots of the Banned.

  But the keep behind her was falling in upon itself; the gardens beneath her were cracking to the core. The beast raked a claw in the stones and shook itself as though trying to speak. Its - his - face contorted as if he had forgotten what the words were, or how to make them.

  She said, her voice a whisper, “Redlock, please. It’s me.”

  But if he understood her, he didn’t show it. He exhaled, shook his hair in a gesture that was so frighteningly chearl she backed away, her heart trembling. She had no idea how much of the man was still there, how much of the creature was not only a part of his flesh, but a part of his mind.

  Then he focused on her. He blinked and stepped sideways, head thrown and knees high as if he were spooked.

  He stopped, made a sound, frowned, made another. With an effort, he managed something that might almost have been her name.

  She said again, as if she voiced some kind of terrible truth, “Redlock...”

  Then there came a heavy, terrifying rumble from behind her, a massive male cry that seemed to echo clear into the sky. The voice was the Bard’s and it said, “Run!”

  The ground shook at the sound.

  Triqueta turned and saw the entire front wall of the keep coming down. Heart hammering now, she turned back, just for a moment thinking that the creature would rescue her like this was some kind of saga, that he would pick her up and race away across the gardens and there would be some kind of...

  Some kind of what?

  But the creature looked at the falling wall. He blinked, puzzled, edged backwards, scraping the stones under his claws. As Triqueta held her hand out again, she realised that she’d missed the chance to touch him, to reach him, to tell him that it would be okay.

  He was backing away, eyes wild, hands resting on axes as they always had. His claws left long scars in the stones.

  Then Ecko hit her in the back like a trade-road bandit. “Shift your ass, willya?”

  On the ground before her, the shadow of the wall was moving. Even as she watched it, the whole of the front of the tower slid free, crashed with a roar into the courtyard. Stones came over the wall like missiles, like a wave of thrown rock and Ecko ran, holding her wrist and dragging her with him.

  They raced for the cross walk, for the haunted forest.

  As they reached the courtyard, the wall cracked asunder, splitting from top to bottom, so she turned one last time to look into the crumbling garden.

  The centaur was standing there like a carven statue, watching them go.

  * * *

  When they were clear, they stopped on the clifftop, wind and sky and flowers. The sun was sinking towards the distant Kartiah and the sea shone like polished metal. The keep, whatever it was, had fallen and a cloud of smoke hung like a pall in the clear air.

  Triqueta tore a handful of bright summer colour up by the roots, threw it at Ecko sobbing, caught somewhere between fury and grief. But Ecko couldn’t face her and he turned away, looking out over the gleaming water.

  Roderick was right - this is all your fault! This has been loco - all for nothing. Nothing! What have we gained from coming here?

  The Bard stood beside him like an accusation, silent and cold.

  “All right.” Ecko said. “I’m on side. So what the hell do we do now?”

  26: HALF-DAMNED FHAVEON

  It came to him, as he had always known it would.

  And Phylos was on his knees, his hands at his throat. He was gagging for bare life, struggling to understand, to handle this huge thing, this presence, this colossal whack of pure might that had just ravaged him body and soul. It screamed in his mind, brought blood to his heart and eyes and mouth, rang a clangour of hot laughter in his ears.

  It said, mocking, a seething voice like ash and steam, You wanted me, Phylos?

  In that moment, Phylos understood a single truth - that any bargain he had made with this creature was a fallacy, that it had no time for him, it wanted only its own victory - and that if it ruled Fhaveon, it might be in his flesh, but he would not be sharing it.

  Kas Vahl Zaxaar had come.

  Phylos came to his feet, wrenching at the neck of his robe, tearing it open across his chest. He could see the darkness writhing beneath his skin; see an eruption of inks that seared like branding, burning designs into his very flesh. He could smell himself crisping, burning from the inside out.

  But he was Valiembor-blooded. He was Phylokaris, son of Salukaris, of the line of Saluvarith; he was nephew to the Founder himself. And pure-blooded, not some cursed halfbreed - his elite Archipelagan race was untainted. He was born better than these foolish Grasslanders, better than the weak and wasted remnant that Valiembor had become.

  That Rhan had made them.

  Rhan.

  Vahl heard the thought, and his teeming wrath paused. The daemon eased its raging and its striving for control. Rhan. For that moment, they meshed perfectly - they had a mutual enemy and they were of one mind, and one purpose.

  Rhan.

  Vahl knew he was coming...
<
br />   ...and he knew that Phylos had already beaten him once.

  * * *

  It was a pinpoint, bright and white and rainbow, too many colours to see, impossibly brilliant and getting bigger by the moment. Across the city, people pointed, turned, their anger forgotten. It was approaching with incredible swiftness.

  And it was aimed straight at the heart of Fhaveon herself.

  It grew larger, became brighter than the sky, searing out of the north. Everything stopped.

  The air, the wind, the water. The city, her seething streets and bloodied riots, her chaos and creatures, her soldiers and dissenters. Mael and Selana. The tan commander Ythalla, still mounted; the cornered Mostak, fighting to hold his life and his ground.

  On the balcony, Phylos could see it clearly - he knew exactly what it was and he welcomed it. He stood with his arms still outstretched as though he were pulling that streaking light straight into his heart, some long-lost brother, some sibling blazing back from the dead.

  And within him, Vahl was laughing with a blood-eagerness that tainted them both.

  Rhan.

  Brother, estavah, soul of my soul. Welcome!

  The Merchant Master stood trembling, his body all but alight. Mortal and immortal, they waited together, a suprahuman pulsebeat of anticipation. Vahl had waited in hiding for four hundred returns, and his victory was upon him. Phylos had schemed and manipulated, destroyed the Council and the city, left the last child of the Founder alone and afraid.

  His, whenever he chose to take her.

  The light was blinding, almost upon them. It was screaming for the city like some avenging comet, like the last star of the night sky come to reclaim the day.

  On the ground, the people shrieked and scattered.

  “There is no need to fear!” With a roar that shook the very walls, Phylos rent his robe from neck to hem, showing the ink and spirals and darkness that writhed within his flesh. “The city stands strong!” Without even realising how or why, he -they - threw themselves upwards and into the incoming blaze.

  Rhan.

  As he hit, dazzled and tumbling, robbed of breath and sight, Phylos thought he was screaming, but had no idea if the noise was even his own. The air burned around him, in him. The impact was more than his mortal mind could tolerate - but Phylos was long-lived, noble-blooded, Archipelagan, and Kas Vahl Zaxaar was with him, riding the detonation and holding him against it. The two creatures met - light and fire, too similar, and for a single crazed instant, they were almost one, united as brothers down through all the long returns of the world’s existence. Blasted by the detonation, Phylos could barely tell which one was alight in his soul and which one blazed about him, wrath incarnate.

  But the pain was glorious, like the adrenaline that wins you a race despite bones broken, that brings through exhaustion to the elation of the mountaintop. For a moment, they spun, through and over and under, in and around each other like a tornado. Then Phylos was falling, suddenly cut loose and ragged. There was a flash of an awful loss, a bereavement - the loss of the bright halls of the heavens, vanishing above him -and then with a jar like coming suddenly out of a dream, he was crashed down and reeling, breathless, stumbling, across the broken remnant of the city’s mosaic.

  The fall should have killed him, but he had landed on his feet.

  The sensations were fading, even as he wondered what had happened. But Vahl was there, had held him to life, had brought him through the impossibility - the daemon was still with him.

  You are Phylos. Hold to your faith and trust me.

  Phylos looked at the tiny, shattered tiles. Blinked for a moment. Looked up.

  Rhan was standing over them. He wore the smoke of the city behind him like a cloak of wrath. He bore the sky like a personal light, the sunshine like anger. He did not need to say it aloud. Vahl. I’ve been waiting for you.

  Still with the theatre? Vahl laughed with Phylos’s mouth, laughed as if the city, the smoke and the ruin were his to own, as if the Varchinde itself belonged to him in ash and rubble and loss. Save it, I can see through you.

  Aloud, he said, “Brother.”

  * * *

  Pressed flat against the wall, Mael and Selana stood, stunned, at the outmost edge of the mosaic. They had seen the streak of illumination, seen it strike the balcony, seen Phylos rend his robe and hurl himself from the balcony’s edge.

  There had been a detonation, a massive whack of air and light that had knocked everyone - everything - back from the point of impact. People sprawled, screaming; dust and rubbish tumbled. For a moment, the city seemed to contain a whirlwind, coiling heat and light in an inseparable, crazed spiral, then Phylos hit the mosaic with an impact that sent cracks through the pattern, cracks through the city itself - and over him stood the blazing-white figure of the Seneschal.

  “Rhan. Oh my Gods...” Selana’s hands went to her mouth. She had tears in her eyes that glittered with rainbows of refracted light. Mael had no idea if the gesture was fear or relief, whether she still blamed Rhan for the hurt that had been done to her family, or whether she was overwhelmed to have him back with her, and for her.

  Mael somehow had just found an answer.

  He said, “Now, my Lord, now while we can. We must reach the balcony!”

  But he couldn’t tear her away.

  Slowly, some manifest monster, Phylos stood up.

  The mosaic had dented at his impact, as if he carried new weight, an authority never before seen. He wore only his clout, his massive physique writhed with patterns of ink and darkness - he looked as though he could explode, seethe into a tentacled growth of something else entirely, grow roots, wings. He looked as if his soul were suddenly larger than his flesh and could barely be contained.

  And he was laughing.

  The sound shuddered through the mosaic at his feet, through the city itself, it echoed from the palace wall. Every creature in Fhaveon heard him as he spoke.

  “Brother.”

  The word was a death knell.

  And then he turned, raising his arms like a priest from some ancient and forgotten saga. He threw them wide, encompassing all of the madness and the destruction and the inhuman and impossible creatures that now stood, stunned, about the edge of the mosaic.

  “Now,” he said, “let us show my brother his homecoming.”

  And around them, the stunned creatures began to shift into motion.

  Selana shuddered at the sound of his voice. Mael could hear it - as clear as the sky itself. He was no longer Phylos, he was something darker and softer, something more elegant and smothering - something far more dangerous. As the ranged forces at the edges of the mosaic came slowly to life, began to move forwards towards the single figure in their midst, the young Lord shook herself and lunged, crying aloud, “Rhan! I’m here! Rhaaaaaan!”

  Mael made a grab for her arm.

  Surrounded by violence, the Seneschal almost turned, almost heard her, but the tide of darkness was seething forwards now, creeping over the broken mosaic, soldiers armed and angry, creatures twisted with righteous rage, burning with steam that shimmered in the air. That tide was all around him, incoming and threatening to take him down - and at its centre Phylos pulled it to him and wrapped himself in it, used it as cloak and glory and weapon.

  For a moment, Mael stared at it all blindly and wondered where all of the people had gone. If the riots had just been...

  ...a distraction.

  Dear Gods.

  He pulled Selana’s arm. “My Lord. My Lord. We must go!”

  For an instant longer she stood there, straining, as if she willed Rhan to fight, willed him to hear her, as if by sheer force of wishing she could undo all of this madness and go back to just being Selana, the only child of a gentle father -

  Move! Saravin’s voice in Mael’s ears made the old scribe shake the girl, Lord or no, and run.

  * * *

  Rhan was home.

  Home to a nightmare, home to a city destroyed by four hundred returns of h
is brother’s scheming and building and patience.

  And now they came for him - weapons raised and mouths stretched in hate - soldiers, monsters, creatures. They came from every direction, faster now, burning with eagerness and clawing at each other in the effort to reach him first. They came with eyes of darkness, of fire, eyes that reflected his own light. As they closed in upon him, they tussled to gain ground, they turned on each other, snarling and fighting. Among them, lost and crushed, or carried forward by the flow, came the ordinary people of Fhaveon, those few survivors who had taken to the streets in protest and now found themselves caught in this crazed war not of their making.

  They were cut and crushed and trampled, forgotten, into the mosaic below.

  And Phylos - Vahl - just stood back and watched them die.

  But this was what Rhan had been made for. Defending the city, not against manipulations and politics, but against the manifest physical flesh of her foes - against his risen brother.

  At last.

  This was what mattered.

  Phylos’s fetter had gone, and even though the soul of light was sunken, Rhan could still attune himself to the vibrations of the elemental Powerflux with a skill that made Maugrim look like a ’prentice.

  And he was angry.

  The first creature dropped with a fist to its temple - brutal and satisfying - he didn’t even see what it was. And then there were two of them, three, four, five, and they were on him like a deluge. For a few moments, it looked like he would be overwhelmed, there were too many; they were coming from every direction. The sheer weight of them was too much, and they were bearing him down to the mosaic to be crushed along with the people of the Lord city. He was faltering, falling...

  No. It’s not that damned easy.

  With a roar that was as much force as volume, he regained his feet, threw them back. They tumbled from him, bloodied and dying, like he was the heart of his own explosion, like he was the Powerflux itself. Here was a vialer, broken and discarded; here a soldier, picked up and thrown back, his head shattered on the tiles. Here was a trader, carried forward by the tide and crushed between the force before him and the incoming creatures behind. Rhan did not even see him.