Ecko Burning

by Danie Ware

  In the midst, a lone centaur, head and body higher than the rest and claws raking the tiles as it came. He was young, bore blades that he wielded with impressive skill, hacked his way through friend and foe alike to reach where Rhan was standing.

  The tiles were melting under the Seneschal’s feet.

  The centaur bellowed, and Rhan turned to face it. He did not even pause - he was laughing like his brother now and he simply raised a hand and gestured, throwing the creature away. It faltered, screaming like an injured horse; it dropped one weapon to cover its eyes. Blind, it careered, clawing and crushing. A moment later, a soldier behind it ripped a hole in its gut in an effort to save her own life.

  The creature tumbled sideways, kicking, took several members of the woman’s tan down with it. Its remaining weapon slashed at anything that came close and the awful scream went on.

  The tan turned on it, hacked it to pieces.

  Phylos was still laughing.

  Raging now, elated and hard and pure, Rhan picked up a sneering nartuk bodily and threw it, its body combusting even as it left his hands, and turning into crisping flesh and charcoal. The stink was sickening. It crashed into a huddling group of rioters, taking them down and sending the survivors screaming for the shelter of the roadways.

  Smoke rose from the corpse.

  At the edges of the mosaic, people were fleeing now - the soldiers among them. Rhan was berserk, purging himself of long returns of inactivity and laziness and guilt, oblivious to anything but his own savage release.

  And Phylos was still laughing.

  * * *

  The door to the back of the palace kitchens was closed.

  Selana shrugged, knocked on the door three times and then twice.

  There was a long silence, a space that seemed to last until the end of the Count of Time. Mael checked behind them, watching the scattered savagery. He could hear his heart beating despite the roar that was rising from the city’s streets... and then the door eased open and half a face peered around the edge.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s me.” Selana was through it like a bolt from a slingshot, Mael following.

  The young man who had opened the door wore a cook’s greasy overshirt and a frown. “My Lord! You shouldn’t be here. They’re trying to breach the gates!”

  “We must get to the balcony.” On her home ground now, the Lord pushed the young man gently out of the way and eyed the long arch of the corridor before her, rocklit doorways to either side. She said to Mael, “Can you still run?”

  His heart was thundering.

  “I’m not done yet, my Lord.”

  From somewhere, they could hear rising sounds of panic, then a solid boom as something hit the front gates. The floor under them shook. Selana paled, gathered her skirts and her breath, and they ran.

  Behind them, the young man called, “But what are you going to do when you get there? My Lord? My Lord!”

  Mael had got this far by wit and luck and the seat of his breeches - if they got to the balcony and Rhan had fallen, they had better make this convincing because it was the last thing either of them would ever do.

  Cries came down the passageway. Selana skidded round a corner, another, raced past the long foodhall, stumbled up a flight of steps and came out in the main entranceway of the Fhaveon Palace.

  “By the Gods.” In the midst of the madness, Mael paused.

  He’d never been in here, never had reason. The huge door, the tiled floor, the sweep of steps, the colossal painting that covered the ceiling - Saluvarith himself, blessed by the Gods, laying the first stones of the city on the site of the legendary Swathe. The room was huge, it echoed with emptiness and it robbed Mael of words and breath. He -

  Behind him, the door juddered under a massive impact. The walls quivered. Raised voices outside chanted mockery, echoed the sound of Phylos’s steam-filled laughter.

  Selana cried, “Come on!”

  She was gone up the huge stairway, faster than Mael could follow. His heart was labouring in his chest now, the rhythm oddly strong and too fast, but he didn’t have time to worry. For just a moment, he wished that Saravin was with him, that the old warrior could have done this instead of him - perhaps he would have done it differently, or better.

  The door juddered again. The drop-bar shook and dust fell. There were whoops and cries from outside - another impact like that one and the damned thing would give.

  In the hallway below, a strident voice was assembling a tan of the palace guard, a small and decorative force that, by Mael’s reckoning, would last about as long as a sneeze. They stood like a gaggle of nervous dancers, fidgeting with weapons they had no idea how to use.

  When the doors went, they would scream and scatter and die.

  He didn’t have time to even feel pity for them.

  Selana was bounding upwards. She rounded the corner of the stairs and paused to check the landing. The judder and boom echoed again from below, and Mael could hear the voice calling the straggled force to rally and hold firm. He glanced, but could not see the commander. As he reached the top of the stairs, he stopped, hauling breath into wheezing lungs, his heart thundering, swift and relentless, counterpoint to the rhythm of the battering below.

  Then there was a terrible weight in his chest, a sudden hot thumping in his ears. His vision was going dark, tunnelling in about him. He tried to go after Selana, but he really couldn’t breathe and his legs were like water and he needed to sit down.

  Just to catch his breath.

  Just for a moment...

  You silly old fool, said Saravin. You’ve done it, you’ve really done it. You can stop now. Everything will be fine.

  Brother Mael slid to the floor, one hand on his chest. He really wanted an ale, but he decided, all in all, as his vision blackened and his heart seemed to labour even harder, that his old friend was probably right.

  He’d done what he had to. He could stop now.

  * * *

  Rhan stood alone amid the cries of the dying.

  He was breathing hard, stained with blood and filth and ash. His light dimmed with weariness, but he was still standing, and the mosaic was his.

  Only Phylos still stood, watching him with the eyes of his brother.

  In the streets, the fighting continued, knots and ripples of violence. The steady boom of the assault on the palace - the war for the city was not yet done. Here, though, there was silence.

  Then Vahl said, soft as ruin, “Your skill does you proud, my brother. Your returns of idleness have not made you soft.”

  “Get out of my city.” Rhan spat contempt and anger. He was in no mood for word games.

  “Your city?” Vahl laughed at him. Ink writhed across Phylos’s flesh, as if it strove to break free and coil through the stone beneath. “Your city? The city that you’ve lost, brother, the city that you’ve failed, despite Samiel’s charge?”

  “I’ve failed nothing. Brother.”

  “You’ve failed everything.” Phylos spoke with his own voice, with Vahl’s tones sliding through and round and under them. “Don’t you remember? Samiel cast you down for loving his daughter, for laying your hands upon the body of the Goddess. Don’t you remember how she felt, Kas Rhan Elensiel? How she tasted? Calarinde - she rises in glory above you every night of your immortal life, and you can never touch her again.” Phylos came forwards as he spoke, insidious and mocking. “Ah, but you never knew the truth of it, my poor estavah, my halfdamned brother. You didn’t seduce the Goddess - how could you? Look at you. She came to you, took you, loved you - just so you’d be cast down. Samiel set you up, you fool, and then he damned you for it.” Phylos’s smile was as wide as the sky, too wide for his face. “And still, you’ve failed.”

  Rhan said nothing. His light paled against the sky. But Vahl was not done.

  “Look at you. Indolent, selfish, bored. The world rotted because of you, stagnated because of you. I bring change, brother, new life. Progress.” He was close now, all smirking and
warmth. “Am I the daemon, Rhan?” His smile was pure venom. “Or are you?”

  Am I the daemon?

  Rhan stood, surrounded by ruin, awash with memories he had not dared touch, not down through all the long returns of his exile. How she felt? How she tasted? In the streets there were echoes of noises, tails of fighting, the steady boom still came from the palace gate, but here, there was silence.

  Samiel set you up, you fool, and then he damned you for it.

  Rhan let go of the light, the pulse and power of the Flux. He paled until he was his normal self, recognisably the Seneschal, though weary and faltering under the weight of his brother’s truth.

  He said, “When did you give up your soul, Phylos? I hope the trade was a good one.”

  Vahl laughed, the noise ringing in the morning light. “Is that all you have left?”

  “No. It’s not.” Rhan looked up, shook his head. “I’ve missed you, my brother, my estavah, soul of my soul. But whatever truths you reveal, you’ve forgotten something.” His voice became stronger, regaining its usual sardonic boom. “Calarinde is the Goddess of Love, or so they say. I may have served four hundred returns for her touch, but you know what?” One hand lashed out, closed on Phylos’s throat. “It was worth it.”

  And he squeezed.

  “Now, Dael Vahl Sashar. You’re out of options. You can’t own me, and there’s nothing else here strong enough to hold you.” His hand tightened. “I call you damned, brother. Once, and for all time. Go home, go back to the Rhez, and leave my city, and my people, and my family, alone.”

  Phylos gagged, hands clawing at the arm that held him, but it might as well have been carven stone.

  “And as for you, Phylos, killing you gives me more pleasure than I can describe. And if that makes me the daemon, then so be it.” His grin broadened, his hand crushed harder and the man’s eyes bulged, his jaw worked as he strove for air. “Ah, the times I could have done this across the Council’s table! You and your smugness and your damned games.” His hand crushed harder. “No trickery, no Elementalism. You’ll die by my bare hands.”

  Phylos shook, scrabbled with hopeless grip. He fought for one last moment, his face blackening almost as if the tattoos were spreading through his skin. Then he gagged, pissed himself, and slumped.

  Rhan threw him down, discarded like garbage.

  But over him, an odd haze, like shadow in the morning sun, was something else entirely.

  * * *

  Selana Valiembor, Lord of Fhaveon, came out onto the palace balcony to see her city in devastation. Death and pain filled the streets, smoke drifted across the sky. Buildings were in ruin, walls torn down, trees ripped up by their roots. The sunken half-circle of the theatre had formed a rallying point for the remains of the soldiery. The GreatHeart Rakanne still stared out over the water, still oblivious to the threat that had crept in under her guard.

  Selana stood silent, looking out at her city. She could see that the market was no more, a scattered ruin of ash and char, fragments of livelihoods discarded and forgotten. There were figures wandering the remains, confused - as if looking for some shred of their crafting, some reason, some hope.

  Below her, there was fighting at the palace gate - the rattle and boom of the great doors had stopped, it seemed the guard commander had mounted a sortie. She could see them now, a woman armed and armoured, and the sight gave her a fierce rush of joy. She wanted to run down there and embrace her, crying at her courage.

  It was Valicia, her mother.

  To her other side, the great mosaic was shattered, its fantastical design now torn up and scattered, melted and blasted. Rhan still stood at its centre, though his light was faded. Phylos lay dead, his body twisted and stained.

  Selana felt a moment of relief, a sudden need to cry.

  Then she saw the thing that faced him, the shadow, standing over Phylos like a predator. It was oddly nebulous, as if crafted of smoke or somehow had no flesh of its own.

  Something about it made her skin crawl.

  It was like nothing she’d ever seen: it was old, stooped, shrivelled somehow, with a vast sense of power and eagerness that she could feel, even from here. It was emaciated, its smoky body wasted. There were long scars at its back as if it had once had wings, but they had been cut or torn away. Its skin was thin and cracked in places and it could not stand fully upright. It flinched and flickered at the light of the sun.

  As yet, as she looked at it, something in her heart was moved to a vast pity.

  And it looked back at her, eyes burning blue like the heart of the fire.

  She shivered, pinned and staring, held to the spot.

  And slowly, she felt its smoke filter gently into her thoughts.

  * * *

  Vahl was a broken thing.

  No longer the beauty and strength of the Gods’ most favoured form of life, no longer hale with might and presence - no longer even flesh. He was shattered, crouched and cracked and sneering. He wavered in the sea air.

  Rhan had waited four hundred returns for this - and now he found he couldn’t lift his hand. Phylos was dead, the city was safe... his brother was broken.

  Vahl. Kas or Dael, he was estavah, closer than any creature had ever been, would ever be.

  Up on the balcony, Selana was standing like the carven statues of her family, staring down at them.

  He watched his brother for a moment, beyond victory and beyond heartbreak.

  And then he took a breath, and blew the creature away.

  27: PATTERNS AMOS

  In her high tower, wrapped in chill and shadow, Nivrotar of Amos stood silent as death.

  The wide stone bowl before her was layered over with fine ice, smooth and absolutely clear. Reflected in it was a young girl, blonde and pretty, her head bowed. Beside her stood a man injured, his arm folded in cloth and a long scar torn down his cheek. At her other side was an older woman, her face similar in features but tired.

  They did not speak.

  They did not need to.

  Upon a pallet before them lay an elderly man, grey-faced and motionless. His eyes were closed, but his chest still fluttered -barely. His lips were parted as if hoping to draw some life from the still air.

  Nivrotar knew the inside of the Fhaveon hospice well enough; knew Selana and Mostak and Valicia, the last faces of House Valiembor. She had watched Phylos’s final moments, the return of Rhan and the fall of Vahl Zaxaar - and she watched now, observed the ongoing life of the Varchinde as she always had, always would.

  Selana said, “Funny isn’t it - he’s not a warrior, not a champion, he’s not anything really” - there was a weight of sadness in her tone - “he’s just an old man.”

  “We owe our lives to Brother Mael,” Mostak said quietly, “all of us.”

  Selana nodded. “We owe him the city.” She turned as the door behind her opened, said like a flare of hope, “Can you save him?”

  Rhan was drawn and ashen, as grey as the man on the pallet. He looked weary, as though his returns had loaded his shoulders with cares he had no way to lessen or voice.

  “Honestly, my Lord?” he said, “I don’t know. But if there’s attunement and light left in me, Gods willing, then I’ll give it everything I’ve got.”

  Selana nodded and stood back, letting him approach the pallet.

  Nivrotar was old. Perhaps as old as Amos herself, she honestly couldn’t remember. She could feel the Powerflux in her aged bones, in her Tundran blood. She could feel the spreading seethe and webwork of elemental strength that wrapped the world, flowed in the seasons and the growth and death of the grass. As Rhan opened his focus, accessed that web for himself, she could feel him like a node, a bright flare of immortal awareness.

  She could feel just how terrifyingly powerful he really was -and how close he had come to losing.

  Yet he knelt beside the old man like a supplicant, one hand on his thin chest, his weak, limping heart. He lowered his head, inhaled. Then he blew, a single long breath that was almost vi
sibly warm, a gift of life.

  Heal and Harm, the oldest elemental rule - none could learn one without learning the other.

  Slowly, the old man’s chest ceased its desperate fluttering, the colour returned to his face. A second breath, and he was relaxing, his heart rate steadying. A third, and he was asleep.

  Rhan sat back on his heels, his hands shaking and his skin like aged parchment. His face was sunken and his expression exhausted.

  “Sometimes,” he said, his voice a low rumble, “the greatest heroes are not visible - they’re not immortal guardians, not lords or warriors. Sometimes the greatest hero is an old man who lost his best friend and wanted to do the right thing.”

  The last word caught in his throat, and he swallowed. “I’m shamed by his courage.”

  “We all are.” Mostak’s tone was gruff.

  “You know,” Rhan said, looking back round at them, “I did not harm your brother, nor you, Lady.”

  Valicia lifted her chin. “I know that now,” she said. “Or you’d be having a very close encounter with a very sharp knife. Mostak - in the hospice -”

  “Phylos tried to kill me.” The commander gave a brief, eloquent shrug. “Warrior I may be, but I’m not that damned stupid.”

  Rhan made no attempt to stand. “Then my service is yours, as it has always been.” His voice broke, with exhaustion and grief. “If you still want it.”

  There was a moment of silence, more compassion than consideration.

  Then Selana said, “Yes, my Lord Seneschal, I do. On the presumption that Brother Mael is appointed Merchant Master and the Council of Nine reformed. After all,” she gave an impish grin, “you wouldn’t want me to be a tyrant, would you?”

  “And,” Mostak said bleakly, “no more narcotics.”

  “You have not only my service, Commander, but my word and my focus.” A faint, wary smile flickered over Rhan’s face. “Somehow, I feel my brother may lurk closer than we realise.”

  * * *

  In the gathering gloom of the tower, Nivrotar pulled her attention away from Rhan and his family. She touched the edge of the wide stone dish, moved the focus of the ice within until she could see the shattered streets of the Lord city, the death and debris, the drifting smoke. The hospice doors were open, but there were too many injured for the building to hold and the gardens were filled with the hurt and dying, some of them tended by friends, others crying out and alone.