by Danie Ware
Hands shovelled roughly, dirt packing under nails.
Redlock was digging, spitting dirt and shaking it out of his hair.
Triqueta, further back, watched the tunnel – the broken pile of rubble, the roof. Sweat ran down her temple and trickled round the edges of the opal in her cheek. Her jaw jumped with tension.
Tarvi picked up rocks, threw them aside as the axeman broke through the wall.
The draught grew colder. Blind, squiggling things quested eyeless in the sudden air, the wash of it was almost fresh.
There were chinks of light coming through the soil, angled beams like tiny searchlights spread as the wall came down.
Ecko, unable to rid himself of the conviction that the beasties would reassemble and rumble upright, looking for revenge, paced the edge of the rockfall, nimbly jumping the stones that Tarvi threw at his feet.
She winked at him and his belly tightened. He thought about something else.
So – you still watching, Eliza? Extra points for creativity? For the shortcut?
“I’m through,” Redlock said. He hooked another chunk of soil and ripped it down, roots hung pointless and pale. One more, and the hole was large enough for Ecko to get his shoulders through.
And large enough to flood the rockfall with light.
Yellow light, like nicotine, nacreous and familiar.
Tarvi said, “That looks –”
“No shit.” Ecko didn’t need to be told what it was. “I guess we’ve arrived. You lot stay the fuck put, willya? I’m gonna find the elevator.”
“The what?” Redlock was ruefully examining the axe-edge, reaching in a pouch for a whetstone.
“In the words of the prophet – we’re goin’ down.” Ecko’s skin writhed with the colour of the light. “The big bad guy’s always in the last place you look. So fuck that – we are so starting at the bottom.”
Without waiting for their confusion, he pushed through the soil, chill and soft, damp against his skin. He spat it from between his lips, felt the roots tail softly over his face.
He heard Tarvi whisper, “Careful!” felt her hand almost touch him as he scrabbled to make the hole larger.
He knew what the light was – had an idea of what he’d...
Holy fucking mother of god.
His anti-daz flick-flashed.
Halfway in the wall like he was Malice through the Looking Glass, he stopped to stare.
Behind him, the others were forgotten. Maugrim, his stone beasties and his pomegranate grenades, his bike and his washers, forgotten. The Wanderer, forgotten. Eliza, Lugan, the Bike Lodge, the Virtual Rorschach, forgotten.
The light made his skin blanch to jaundice. He blinked his black eyes and he didn’t care.
Pushing himself fully through the hole, he righted himself to stand, breathless, upon the edge of a void. A wide and plummeting shaft, a bottomless drop his telescopics could not penetrate: the very brink of nothing. In the walls, spasms of light flickered downwards, sparking electricity like faulty cables they deepened in hue as they were lost in the darkness.
It was a movie set, a tableau for an epic fight scene – impossible.
Before him, a wide balcony, ancient stone grown with pale creeper that snapped, dry, under his touch. The balcony ringed the wall – it threw jerky and random shadows. It didn’t quite surprise him that three other entranceways were blocked with old rockfall and the open-mouthed, light-seeking lichens.
The light shaft was carved into an almighty and continuous mural – prehistoric figures dancing or fucking in celebration or anguish, caressed by the current that ran through them. The creeper covered them, crawling with a dead lover’s hands – they danced away, the light making them restlessly carouse until they were lost, down, down in the dark.
What’s this now? The road to hell?
Compelled, he picked up a loose pebble.
Bring it on.
But before he let it go, he looked up.
And over him was the underside of the Monument.
A flat, stone ceiling, cracked as though under great impact. Upon it was engraved some sort of spiral, gradually winding outwards – but it was roughly, randomly penetrated by the undersides of the stones.
Thrust through the ceiling, splitting it in places to the edge, they were jags of rock, juts of stone, edges and corners.
And they shone.
And the light spiralled out to the walls.
And bled through the figures and down.
For chrissakes, Ecko thought, this place is way too fucking creepy.
Leaning on the balcony’s edge, holding the pebble out over the massive drop – oh you so know I have to! – it occurred to him to wonder what the fucking hell was keeping that ceiling intact.
He let the pebble go.
And watched it, tracking it with his telescopics until he could see it only in the flashes of the wall light... until the darkness swallowed it whole.
Waited there for a moment, listening for the monsters, the drums in the deep.
When they didn’t stir, he contemplated the rough stone stairway that turned about the shaft’s wall, spiralling down into the very belly of the Powerflux.
So. Let’s go wake ’em up.
* * *
When he kissed her, she tasted ashes.
The brazier was fierce at her back, his hands and lips were hot, but she was closed to him. The rock of her resentment was still in her heart. She wished she could hear the stone.
She remembered Feren: she remembered their ride, the Monument, the creature. She remembered the sunset, the rising shadow of the Kartiah. She remembered Vilsara, a world away, still safe behind Xenotian church walls. Had she ever wondered what had become of them?
Like Maugrim’s touch, the stone blade in her belly was hot, it burned her soul. She gasped, a tiny sound of shock – he was kissing her still, letting her fold in his arms and lowering her to the stone spiral beneath his odd, black boots.
“Sorry sweetheart,” he said, his voice deep and soft in her ear. His fingers stroked her jaw. “Seems time’s caught us up.”
Thick fluid welled over hands she couldn’t remember moving – she looked down at them, uncomprehending. Her own blood between her fingers, soaking her garments, seeping slowly, slowly, into the runnels of the carved-stone floor.
And inwards.
Vaguely, she thought there should be pain. Belly wounded, she should be screaming, but she only looked at him, confused.
She heard herself say, “Why?” and already knew the answer.
He said, “This world is rotting, dying from the inside. Complacent, lazy, self-absorbed – when I came here, he showed me how to fix it. How to burn it all down so it can begin again! He showed me truth – took me and taught me because I understood. And so did you, little lady, my priestess, my healer – at first, so did you.” He smiled down at her. “It was good, wasn’t it?”
She could see the brazier’s light behind him and the bright eyes of the Sical, watching her, wanting...
He stroked her hair away from her face.
“I’m sorry – genuinely sorry, Amethea.” On some level, he seemed to mean it. “I’d’ve taken you all the way with me. But betrayal, cowardice – they’re low. You’ve hurt me – and I have to fight now. Roviarath is mine – and from there, we will grow...”
Over her, the almighty twists of the stalactite pillar flickered with the Sical’s hunger. She could hear it, a voice like fire crystal, eager and coquettish and charming.
Feed, I!
She struggled to one elbow, blood pulsing from her belly. The blade was still in her flesh and the blood was slow – so slow. A part of her wanted to wrap one hand round the handle, yank it free, spend her last breath ramming it through his bearded throat, but he still compelled her, even after everything.
Instead she said, “Who’s ‘he’?”
He leaned forwards, pressed lips of fire to her forehead. She felt like she’d been branded.
“Who else?” he
told her softly. “Kas Vahl Zaxaar, cast down by Samiel just like his brother Rhan. He sleeps – mostly – but there are those who understand his soul.”
“Like you?”
“Vahl brings passion. There is no place in his world for the mundane.”
In the darkness of the shattered naves, the eyes of the stone army started to glow.
24: FIGMENT
THE MONUMENT
She was small, feminine curves carried confidently by tight, agile fitness. She had dark eyes, a turned-up nose, sunburn and a tension about her that spoke of great fear – and great bravery. She was smart, knew tales even the Bard hadn’t told him. She had watched her patrol destroyed around her, had cried for them and lain in his arms, gasping and wanting, needing to remember to live. He couldn’t begin to imagine what she’d –
For chrissakes will you stop that?
Ecko ripped down her image, screwed it the fuck up and threw it as far from him as he could, resignedly aware that it would bounce down the stairs and sit there, gleaming in the low throb of the light, until he picked it up again.
Beside him on the wall was the worn relief of a full-figured woman, dancing with Vegas abandon in the darkness. The light pulse flickered through her stone skin.
They were deep, down here, the air was damp and slimy stuff was growing in the walls. The light was as purple as bruising, now almost black. He didn’t need his UV to see the phosphor glow of the lichens, of fingernails and eye sockets. He remained invisible – but with the stilled, chilled gyrations round him, he felt like he was nightmare enclosed, heading down and down into some forgotten well-hole.
Yet Tarvi was there, her eyes afire, her hands on her breasts like the woman in the –
Stop it!
He looked back, upwards at the others, clambering weary legged and precarious down the worn, winding rock staircase, yawning drop to one side, hands trailing over the damp. In the almost-dark, the light glimmered over their skin, glittered from the gemstones in Triqueta’s cheeks. He had no idea how far down they were going. His telescopics were trashed: he couldn’t see shit under his own feet.
Above him, Tarvi and Redlock were sharing a joke. She was laughing prettily, her teeth shone with sudden blue-white, a flash in the mist of shadow. Triqueta shoved the axeman with a boot to shut him up.
The sight of them sent a lightning shock through him. Ecko couldn’t help it – his adrenals fired, his targeters reacted. He would have burned her to death. More new feelings – he was a fucking jealous kid, resentful and sullen like some overgrown street teen. He wanted to hate the axeman; he wanted to find reasons why, rationalise his emotional reaction...
For fuck’s sake will you get a fucking grip already.
Unthinking, he stood on his cloak hem, overbalanced and rocked for a moment at the stair’s outside, black fall yammering at him. As he regained his balance, his adrenals had triggered – his heart was in his mouth, his pulse rate screaming gunfire in his temples. Then he was slumped against the wall, against the bare, slime-slick breasts of the dancer.
Struggling to breathe like some fucking wheezing asthmatic.
Tarvi was there, a shape in the darkness, a hand on his forearm. Her nails glowed with a flicker of electro-varnish. He could imagine her touch sending heat ripples through the almost-black colours of his skin.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Get the fuck off me.” His rasp was low. He drew back from her, dropped a step. Bruised light crossed her face, her expression was closed. She looked – oh, for chrissakes – she looked hurt.
“Oi,” Redlock said. “If she wants to care for you, let her. Don’t want you slowing us down.”
He had no energy for fury.
“You wanna flying lesson?”
The axeman’s grin became a laugh.
“Might be more of a diving lesson. Triq says –”
“Triq says, we’re near the bottom,” Triqueta said. “Can’t you feel it?”
The air was cooler, almost cold. Their voices had changed: no longer echoing, lost into the distance.
Triqueta held out her hand, turned it over. Ecko’s starlites showed him a plume of fine sand, sparkling as it tumbled slowly past. It made lazy whorls in the air.
“There’s a draught,” Redlock said.
Cursing silently, Ecko flicked options, kicked his UV.
Jesus Harry fucking Christ, you are so pulling my chain...
Mom had never made his oculars to deal with this shit, any of it. Every which way, his enhancements were failing, breaking.
Yeah, Eliza, I know what you’re doing.
They’d found the bottom of the shaft.
Twenty metres or so below him was pure black light, a pool of it, a mirror of it, a still, flat shine of dark illumination.
Jump, it said. Go on...
Ecko was no sparky, but he totally got that the Monument stones were some kind of node – they were pulling energy, storing it. Zapping it down the walls. And feeding it here – this thing was some sort of capacitor.
But then what?
Ecko found that he wanted – needed – to blow his way through, to announce his presence with detonation and destruction. To rip the whole thing wide open and uncover what lay below.
He missed London. Life was so much easier with hardware.
“There’s something else here,” he muttered. “Where’s the draught comin’ from – Maugrim leave the door open?”
“I wonder what’s on the other side?” Tarvi grinned wickedly at him, the deep lights playing upon the curves of her face. He loved the mischief in her expression. He wished he could show her, really show her what he could –
Fucking stop it, you asshole!
“Apparently so,” Redlock said. “Ecko, I know she’s cute, but keep your head in the game.”
Ecko shot him an LED eye-flash, a sneer.
Head in the game. They were going down a dungeon, for chrissakes – the axeman had no fucking idea how funny that really was.
The stairway ended in a stone landing – a drop point the size of a virtual dance-pad. No balcony, no security – a tiny, solid square of safety suspended like a dock over the bottomless battery-stone-of-doom.
It was compelling. At the bottom of the stairs, Ecko crouched on the edge of the platform, shadow within shadow, contemplating the shine...
...and looking for something to throw. Y’know. Just in case.
In the wall was a single entranceway, a massive stone lintel, cracked with age, grown with green stuff, carved with phosphor-glitter eyes. It had an eerie, carnival appearance.
Tarvi came to stand beside him, her leg touching his shoulder.
Behind them, Redlock swore – he’d turned his ankle on the slippery step.
She was a pressure of warmth, her reflection a silhouette. In its darkness, her eyes gleamed white, shards of light were caught under her nails, making them almost clawlike. Somehow, her reflection looked monstrous, inhuman. Still, the nearness of her caught in his throat, his belly – the heat of the contact made his blood rage and his lip curl. He stood up, closing his cloak with a deliberate, concealing action.
As he did so, she turned to him – and something caught his attention.
Something about her reflection – something...
Wrong.
For a second, he was stone still as if hit by a basilisk. Then, flesh crystallising in certainty, he watched her reflection, her ghost shadow, disbelieving, wanting it to be fake...
She couldn’t be... He couldn’t’ve been that fucking stupid...
The query was pointless. The ghost was still there, over and above her. And he knew exactly what it was.
“Question,” Redlock was saying. He’d moved to cover the doorway, axes in hands. “If this Maug-rim is expecting visitors... why haven’t we been attacked? Right now, we’re as vulnerable as a ’prentice with a cauldron for a helmet – where’re the shock-troops? I’d have shot me right off the damned wall.”
“You can�
�t shoot for shit,” Triq told him.
“True enough.” Redlock chuckled and the sound rolled back from the slick, carved walls. “I’d’ve made you do it.”
Ecko wasn’t really listening. He was staring at Tarvi’s silhouette, now side-on. Out there in the stone shine, or whatever-the-fuck it was, tiny spasms of light flickered like eels.
Some part of his mind shrieked at him, You knew it, you fucking knew it! You’ve known it all along!
You fucking asshole!
“We – Ecko – blew through the wall,” Tarvi said, nudging him with her elbow. He recoiled from the contact, throat full of horror – fear that it was true, fear that it wasn’t. Dismay at his own naïveté. “Maybe he’s not expecting us this soon?”
“Smart girl.” Redlock nodded. “You get out of this, I’ll put in a good word to Roviarath for you. That old sod Jade owes me a favour or two.” He winked.
“Really?” Her eyes were wide. “CityWarden Jade? You would do that?”
Blush.
Downcast expression and eyelids half lowered.
Oh, for chrissakes, suddenly it was all so fucking obvious. Ecko wanted to slam his forehead into the wall for being so dumb. She was shovelling it on with an entrenching tool – an Oscar-winning performance to a rapt male audience.
Yeah, so he was that stupid after all.
Suddenly, it was all making sense.
The magharta – at no point had she actually fought them. Her patrol had been shredded round her. Just so he’d feel? The stallion – the Monument raining fire and the fervour in her blood when she’d kissed him. The legends she knew – the information she had access to...
He’d so fallen for the oldest trick in the book – Oh honey, you’re so hot! He berated himself, vicious, silent, scornful. What were you thinking?
All right, already. No prizes for gettin’ the answer to that question right.
In the shine of the stone, her reflection was distorted. Not just the monstrous white eyes and claws, but the shadow that stood with and over her – her guardian spectre. Lush, wanton, terrible.
Irrefusable.
Every schoolboy’s fantasy; the creature every comic-book teen had tacked to his bedroom wall. The ultimate, intimate vision, the dream made flesh...
