Ecko Rising

by Danie Ware

  Never mind that.

  Ecko stared at the fragment, turning it in the rocklight so its broken edges glittered.

  C’mon, think...

  Ecko was recon – he was smart as fuck, when he could be bothered. And right now, he had that shiver in his skin that meant he was onto something – that there was a mystery, right here, right now, that was just begging him to kick it open.

  Like the night he’d taken out Bob Pilgrim, like his stealth-run on Grey’s facility, this was what he fucking lived for.

  And the fragment of resin gleamed.

  This shit grew on the coast. His eyes tracked the map, the colours of the paint.

  What’d the Bard said? Something about “ever-cycling trade” – about the flow of this stuff balancing the flow of wood and stone that came the other way, from the mountains. The roads followed the rivers, both ran west to east, that much was pretty damned straightforward.

  But he was missing something.

  The fragment glittered, teasing.

  Ecko knew jack and shit about agriculture. But he did know when he was on to something – his adrenaline was sparking and he was down from the barrel and pacing, a small, tight figure of shadow and gloom and sharp, hard focus.

  What was it he’d missed?

  He spun, closed his hand round the tiny resin shard and felt its edges nip his fingers.

  Think!

  His brain was firing, ricocheting from one idea and theory to the next. The terhnwood grew at the three coastal cities – Annondor in the south, Amos and the capital city Fhaveon – there.

  He tracked the map, the rivers, the roads.

  Then it hit him, just as if the Lord of Motivation had planted a boot clean up his ass...

  It was empty.

  Vast, open plainland. Scattered habitation. No stars in the sky; no metal in the rock. No lore. A horizon that gave every fucking appearance of being flat.

  How in the name of everything that was unholy did they navigate? Just by the sun?

  The thought brought a rush of thrill in his skin.

  Was that why they didn’t, or couldn’t, travel across the grass? It had to be more than just superstition.

  Oh, now I’ve got you...

  Could this possibly, possibly, be making some kind of sense? He was staring like a man demented, his hand still curled round the tiny piece of resin. What if they had no effective way to cross open distances? Then their entire culture was restricted to the trade-ways that it knew.

  One part of his brain was laughing at him – jeering while he tried to apply reason to a world that had two opposing moons and a werewolf in the kitchen – but he smothered the fuck out of it and kept going.

  He was still missing loads of stuff. If they struggled to navigate, who’d built the roads in the first place? If the society was peaceful and prosperous, then why was the population so fucking small? So hugely spread out? It wasn’t like they were short of food.

  Was there some other factor here, something he’d not seen yet? Threat issues? Beasties clawing down city walls and chewing up farmland? Insane weather systems tearing the plains to dust and shreds?

  Or was the Big McNasty already on the move?

  More than that though – maybe the Bard himself was restricted in the same way? What had he said about landing in populated places?

  Was he, too, unable or unwilling to cross the open grass?

  Was that why he was missing so much learning?

  Oh yeah, I’ve fucking cracked this.

  In the fading rocklight, Ecko’s grin was like a curving slice of nightmare, the new glimmer of a pure black moon. He was shivering with something between adrenaline and anxiety – something that felt like cold anticipation.

  There’s something that fucker hasn’t told me.

  Something he’s avoiding – something he’s afraid of?

  Well, whatever the fuck it was, Ecko was going back up there to kick it out of him, if that was what it took.

  * * *

  When Ecko came back up to the taproom, he found the Bard sitting alone.

  It was utterly, swallowing dark; the only light came from the white feather that Roderick held in his fingers. He was spinning it, and its pale illumination played over his face like the teasing of a ghost.

  In that faint light, he looked old. His eyes were shattered, sparking insane. The lines around them were carved into his flesh, the shadows beneath were as deep as the shadows that lurked like spectres round the room. His lips were moving as though he prayed.

  As Ecko crept closer, he could hear the words.

  “...Searching almost a hundred returns – I have dug every ruin, I have found every treasure, I have told every tale, I have faced every foe. Wherever these creatures are coming from...” The shadows scudded, this way and that, as the feather spun forwards and back.

  “Just this time, please; just this time...” Roderick swallowed hard, almost as if he were choking. “If my will can infest this wood, this brick, this life – please give me the choice...!” His other hand was flat on the table as if it was scanning his fingerprints or something. “I need to understand. I must –”

  “Jeez,” Ecko said. “What crawled up your ass and died? You look like shit.”

  Roderick didn’t even start. He looked up, listless, his face drawn and lined. He looked like he’d spent the night writing mournful poetry in something thoughtfully entitled “My Diary”.

  “I feel like it,” he said.

  A moment later, he straightened his shoulders and pinned his grin back in place, his wicked expression that made the lines both mischievous and youthful. The light returned to his eyes. Ecko had an uncanny feeling that the man’s mask had slipped, just for a moment.

  But the face he’d seen was gone.

  “All right, asshole,” Ecko said. “I reckon it’s time you ’fessed up.”

  “What? What do you mean?” Roderick laid the feather on the table and his grin broadened, just as if he’d never been without it.

  “Why a sudden need to drive?” Ecko grinned at him, cold. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna get off your ass an’ make a decision.”

  “And what ‘decision’ would you suggest?” The Bard’s eyes flickered with echoes, though he didn’t voice them. “I’ve always trusted the world herself to move this building as she needs; trusted it to manifest itself in places of wisdom and necessity. The Wanderer is wiser than I.” He picked up the feather and began, again, to turn it in his fingers. “But tonight... Ecko, I wish you had been here to bear witness. The Banned found an injured boy, and our every fear is manifest. This is bigger and more terrifying that I have words to even frame. Not just the nartuk, a true tale of monsters – crazed beasts crafted from human flesh and will...” His knuckles were white. “How can I give words to my fear? I feel the gathering of the Count of Time. The vision I cannot remember pierces me as a sliver of ice and I feel figments like wings at my back. The Banned must rouse Larred Jade at Roviarath, and I... I have to take this to Fhaveon.”

  “What? You’re not gonna go look for the monsters?” Ecko had a satchel on his shoulder – a one-armed rucksack thing that had been among his scavenged haul. His webbing was likewise stuffed with stolen goodies. He said, “When’re you gonna quit stalling and strap on your hero kit?” His grin was savage.

  “I don’t understand yet.” For a moment, the Bard’s expression was startled. “I must go to Fhaveon, to Rhan. I must know what these things are, where they came from, why they’re –”

  “Another fuckin’ excuse. If you wanna know about monsters, why don’t you go out an’ catch one?”

  “The Council has to know!” Roderick brandished his feather like some sort of evidence. “If there are monsters loose, real ones, alchemical creations of flesh and horror – these things have not been witnessed since the days of Tusien itself! This isn’t just a romp, Ecko! The cities must be warned – there are things happening here that are ancient and forgotten, yet new enough to be terrifying, and t
hey involve the fate of the Grasslands entire. I’m no politician –”

  “No shit.”

  “Yet I must – !”

  “You must what? Sometimes I reckon you’ve been waiting for the bad guys so long that you’ve gone batshit.” He sneered. “You gotta map downstairs. You’ve had this building – what – forty years? Have you looked at it, plotted anything, worked anything out? You fucking coward.”

  The Bard recoiled as if he’d been struck. For a moment, he sought words and found nothing. Ecko waited for the comeback, then snorted pure scorn.

  “You’re telling me all merry hell has just broken loose on your doorstep – and the best you can do is sit here and pray that your fucking pub makes your next decision for you?”

  He crossed his arms, waited for the comeback. Come on then...

  “Ecko.”

  The word was flat, potent enough to rock him where he stood, his mottled skin and black eyes and black sneer all shaded by his cowl.

  He snarled, “What?”

  The Bard was on his feet, now, tall and dark.

  “This isn’t cowardice – this is the decision. Ress must rouse Larred Jade. We must go to Rhan and to the Council in Fhaveon.”

  “What? More delegation?”

  “You say you’re missing information.” Roderick’s smile was mirthless, the shattered gleam was back in his eyes. “There’s so much you still don’t know –”

  “I fuckin’ knew it.”

  “Rhan, Ecko. Let’s start with Rhan.” The Bard’s voice rose, shivering the pre-dawn air. “You jest about facing some ‘God of Evil’, about how your purpose is to defeat them? What if I told you that you’re wrong? What if I told you that the Godsfather Samiel sent an envoy, a creature of white warfare, of pure elemental light, to be the guardian of this world, and to guard and guide her?”

  Ecko thought, Oh you hafta be kidding me...

  “We have our champion Ecko. Rhan is that creature, he is this world’s true hero. He’s our mentor and warden and he’s lived in the Lord City four hundred returns. He stands at the right hand of the Lord Founderson. He defends stone and soil and flesh and family.” Roderick held up the feather. “I’m mortal, with a task to perform. My time is long, even for one of Tundran blood, but it is finite. Rhan is something else entirely. What did you think this was?”

  “Actually I thought it was a pen.” The comeback was quick, but Ecko’s thoughts were a seethe of darkness. In the still, dim air of the taproom, the rising shadows jeered him.

  There’s so much you still don’t know...

  Roderick said, every word a barb, “You’ve made a short-sighted and frankly quite arrogant assumption, but perhaps your future is not that clear or simple?”

  His words were cut short by a sharp judder, a shock that rippled through the air like a concussion.

  “Our ‘God of Evil’ already has his enemy,” Roderick said softly. He was a figure of gloom and air and strength and now madness, the shadows of the taproom rose around him in billowing darkness, the light from the feather illuminated the lunacy in his gaze. “The world has brought you here for a purpose, certainly, but we have to understand how you fit with her vision. We can’t just – !”

  The floor shook, from one end to the other.

  “You crazy-ass motherfucker! I’m not...? Then what the hell am I...?”

  The floor shook again.

  “The world’s vision, Ecko! Her nightmare! There is something else, something greater, something vast and timeless and forgotten. And things have come to pass this evening – critical things. It all starts from here, Ecko – your foe, your fight. We must go to Fhaveon! Rhan must see us! He will help us understand!”

  “Batshit!” Baffled, reeling with confusion, Ecko’s words were reflex – he had no idea what to think. “You’re a coward and a fucking liar!” This world had a champion? This world had a hero? He didn’t understand, he didn’t even want to – all he knew was that he was floundering. He was surfing the shaking floor over a sea of what-the-fuck and he no longer knew what the hell was going on. Every time he thought he understood...

  ...that fucking bitch Eliza threw him a curve ball.

  If she’d built this world for him – why pre-program a ready-coded champion? An uber-hero superbeing just gagging to spank the Lord of Chaos’s ass the second his alarm went off? Was she trying to make Ecko take second place, learn humility – give someone else the glory?

  Become a “team player”?

  Well, fuck that. If eating shit was his exit door? He’d burn this place to the fucking ground first.

  You hear that you bitch? I’ll burn it down!

  In his head, clear as an aural upload, he heard smoothly androgynous tones, Success of scenario projected at 02.64%. Awaiting further parameters.

  Collator.

  His anger froze into fear, and shattered.

  The voice had been so clear in his mind that he fought the urge to spin round, to turn his oculars on every corner of the taproom, on the tables, the bar top, the fireplace, the door... his adrenals were kicked, he was shaking with the stress of his restraint.

  Move and countermove. He could never win. This was in his head. He was hearing voices for fuck’s sake. His grip on this reality was slipping like his grip on Grey’s fucking wall – he half expected the whole scene to dissolve to greenscreen any second. He had no control over his own mind – Eliza could replace his memories, make him hear and see things, jump him round like a circus freak hit with an electroprod... and now, quite literally, he’d lost the fucking plot. If Rhan was the ready-programmed hero...

  The air was starting to twist.

  ...then why the hell was he here?

  The tavern juddered again. Like a bad trip, any second now...

  Roderick’s grin spread wider than his face. He loomed with power and the light from his eyes glittered in shards of splintered amethyst. Any moment now, he was going to laugh – and that laugh would echo across the grass and the tavern would ride it, twisting out of reality only to fall into existence far, far away from where the Banned girl had gone...

  The world slewed around the edge of the plughole, and it started to scream.

  But Ecko made his decision, and the pattern be damned. Faster than the light, faster than the darkness, he was gone.

  PART 3: WAVES

  13: RHAN

  FHAVEON

  Rhan Elensiel, Lord Seneschal of Fhaevon, Foundersson’s Champion, Gift of of the Godsfather and First Voice of the Council of Nine, was having trouble waking up.

  The clear night air had congealed into a milky early morning. His mouth tasted like an esphen’s backside and some motherless bastard had stuffed his head with grass. The wisdom of four hundred returns had taught Rhan many things – among them, the ability to know when he’d overdone it.

  Dear Gods. You’d think I’d’ve learned by now.

  With an effort, he sat up, rubbed a hand through his dishevelled white hair and ground his gaze into focus.

  Samiel’s bollocks.

  He’d passed out in his front room again, apparently not able to make it as far as the door. Across the tall windows, his shutters were closed and the lingering smoke coiled though stripes of early sunlight. Around the room was a scatter of debris: carafes and goblets, empty food platters, long-stemmed pipes tumbled free from their stands. There were also various recumbent friends, in various stages of nakedness, each snoring gently in the aftermath of the previous night’s revelry.

  Oh, all right. The thought was sarcastic, it’d been a very long time since he’d actually given a shit. I’ve really overdone it this time.

  But remind me why it matters?

  With a faint, sardonic chuckle, Rhan sat up, creaking his heavy, pale shoulders to ease the knots in his back. His neck cracked. Immortality, for the Gods’ sakes – frankly, it was overrated.

  He reached for the nearest goblet, took a swig of the remaining wine and, still creaking, unfolded to his feet.

  So.
What threats does the world have for me today? Petty squabbling among the journeying merchants? Piracy? A shortage of roast esphen for the Foundersson’s dinner?

  Or perhaps the Halls of Above have reopened and allowed the stars back into the sky...

  Protector of the World, indeed.

  He took another swig of lukewarm red.

  There were times down through the returns when Rhan had wondered if he shouldn’t’ve been the inevitably ageing greybeard after all: the twinkly-eyed, wise-and-hale old man with the sinister presence and power to spare and the origin lost in mystery. He’d had the choice – he could’ve been anything.

  But he’d figured that immortality was at least supposed to be fun.

  Rhan had forgone storyteller-vagabond, chosen instead a form of height and breadth and strength. He was a carven statue, pale skinned and powerful, classic in feature and form. As carefully crafted as the very city herself, he was a warrior, Fhaveon’s guardian and defender.

  Hero. Or something like that.

  Yet, down through the city’s long returns, his titles had become hollow, jests bereft of anything but taunt – his dark foe had never come back. Instead of righteous fighter, Rhan had been a petty politician for four hundred returns – and that was cursed purgatory.

  Who said the Gods didn’t have sense of humour?

  The brief, acid chuckle came again. However he may physically appear, his immortality was its own blight – even the parties had palled in the end. There were many times he’d wondered if his damned brother had not been the lucky one. He, at least, must still have his passion.

  Take me home, Samiel, Godsfather. I’ve paid for my misdeed. Enough now.

  But the father of the Gods, as ever, wasn’t listening.

  Rhan had another slug of wine and rubbed the drowsiness out of his eyes.

  Around him, his scattering of companions remained motionless. They were a ramshackle assortment, with one thing in common – they were his friends, and he cared little for age or status. He’d watched some of them grow from youngsters, known their parents and their families for generations gone. They were mortal, bright, fragile, and their time was so short – yet they gave him hope. While their lives and vibrancy could still touch him, he could still find the light in his heart.