Ecko Rising

by Danie Ware

  Let justice be done.

  Mostak, commander of the soldiery, responded to the old priest’s final words, just as Dyarmenethe, brother of Samiel, had done, over four hundred returns before.

  “Justice will be done.”

  And, just as the hands of Samiel and his brother had held Rhan out over chaos and let him fall, so now did these hands lead him out to face a fall from another height – to once again plummet into the cold waters of the eastern sea.

  The fall would be less far, but this time, there was no Tekisarri to pull him free, and to give him purpose and new life.

  He was condemned.

  ...You will be nothing.

  For now, though, he had a moment – a fragment of time to cry his denial, to prove his own innocence or Phylos’s guilt, to free himself and release the stranglehold that the Merchant Master closed about the city. A single opportunity to wrest back control and to uncover whatever real plans Phylos harboured. If he failed, and if his brother Kas Vahl Zaxaar ever returned, then the daemon would tear the Varchinde to screaming pieces.

  My poor people. The thought was a thread of light in the darkness. What will happen to you?

  And they marched him, stumbling in silent darkness through stone corridors, a solemn tramp of feet echoing from the walls.

  * * *

  The hands brought Rhan to the scene of his final ruin, and they gave him a push.

  Blind, he stumbled through twin doors, heavy and cold. A rising roar of sound hit him like a tide. He knew where he was – in many ways, this room was more familiar to him than his own skin.

  This was what Tekisarri had given him; this was what the Gods had charged him to care for. His life had been spent in this room.

  As other hands took the blindfold from him, though, he almost quailed.

  In four hundred returns of his guardianship, he had never seen this many people in the Theatre of Nine.

  The implications were sickening, but he could not find the thoughts to articulate them – he was overwhelmed by shouting, by the rising tiers of faces, by the mouths contorted in hate and loathing.

  By the expressions of righteous fury.

  He found himself lurching forwards. Unable to put his hands out to steady himself, he was almost on his knees.

  For the first time in returns without measure, the great, cold theatre had life. It raged with energy, with anger and pride, with the burning-loyal soul of the Lord city. As Rhan’s eyes traced upwards across the people, perhaps looking for an end, looking for a face of hope, a single expression of support – Scythe? Penya? Dear Gods, Roderick? – he could see that there were soldiers, spear bearing and silent, standing in the alcoves in the half circle of the back wall.

  Over them, the carved story of Fhaveon’s founding glittered, mocking, and he looked away.

  At the table, eight of the Nine were gathered – the pale-faced Selana now in her father’s chair, upright and tiny amid the chaos. Her Council were unchanged, only Rhan’s seat was empty, his own carven likeness, ever plummeting, now seemed in outright scorn.

  He took a pace towards it, purely out of reflex. It had been his seat for four hundred returns and he could not...

  He had failed.

  Failed Samiel, failed Tekisarri, failed the family Valiembor, failed his damned brother.

  Will you miss me, Vahl, if I’m not here to fight?

  But Vahl Zaxaar, it seemed, did not hear him.

  Phylos rose to his feet in a billow of blood-fabric.

  “There he is!”

  Reaction spread from him like shock. The sea of shouting faces reddened with fervour, mouths wide, eyes flashing. A chant began at the back of the crowd. “Rhan! Rhan! Rhan!” Fists punched the air in unison.

  For a moment, the shouts counterpointed the ghost memory of Demisarr’s final shriek, the feel of his wife’s lithe and furious body...

  I did not do this!

  His unheard cry was desperate with incomprehension.

  Valicia herself stood like a wall, her arms folded and her expression stone. She had the courage to meet his gaze and face him down, and he knew that she would cast him from the city’s heights herself, if she could.

  Then there were soldiers beside him. Hands on his arms propelled him forwards.

  As he came fully into the bottom of the theatre, the crowds’ frenzy redoubled, shrieking and chanting. They were a mob, savage. The missiles started – fruit, spit, stones. There were faces he knew, lovers and friends, and they were jeering hatred.

  They believed.

  He lifted his chin in challenge and defiance – not to the people, but to his own despair.

  I could not have done this!

  A fruit pit struck his chest. He flinched. Another struck his shoulder, his ear. He almost lost his footing, but forced himself to stand. Briefly, he remembered the terrible plummet of his Fall through chaos, and wondered if it really could have been any worse than this.

  Rack up the tankards, my brother. Perhaps I will be joining you after all.

  One figure surged out of the teeming people, his shouting lost in the crowds’ roar, but his intention clear as he tried to hurl himself down onto the theatre’s floor. A jolt like lightning jarred through Rhan’s body as he saw the loathing on the young man’s face. He stopped, transfixed, tried to meet the man’s gaze, defend himself, deny this insane accusation.

  He said, “Scythe...!”

  But Scythe was caught by a soldier’s hand on his shoulder, efficient and ruthless. A moment later, the soldier had snatched the young man up and carted him away.

  The crowd jeered and wailed.

  Phylos held up his hands for silence.

  Slowly, the tides of movement stilled. A child cried at the back and was hushed by a gentle murmur.

  “This is Fhaveon,” Phylos said, “the might of the Varchinde. Built by Saluvarith, ruled by the First Lord Foundersson Tekisarri and by his sons and daughters for four hundred returns. We are the Grasslands’ Lord and guardian, the people of the plains look to us for hope, faith and terhnwood.

  “And we cannot let them down.”

  The crowd was quiet now, watching the Merchant Master as if transfixed. Rhan could feel that the room was growing oddly warm.

  Sweating.

  He shifted, oddly uneasy.

  What?

  “There is a legend, people of Fhaveon,” Phylos told them, “one we have all heard in the markets and bazaars. A tale that this city was built to face a daemon, that Saluvarith brought the white stone of the Archipelago here to the Varchinde and that he constructed a fortress, a great wall upon the water. He built a city of might to ensure that this daemon would never return.

  “And the tale goes on. It tells that he was sent a champion, an immortal warrior to stand upon the city’s wall and watch always for her foe.

  “We ask ourselves, people of Fhaveon, if this legend is true.”

  The people were silent. The tale of Fhaveon’s construction was well known, but few treated it as anything more than a tavern-saga. In this world of trade and terhnwood, the word “daemon” had a ring of the ludicrous.

  Phylos was smiling like a benefactor. Rhan was watching him now, unsure where this gambit was going.

  The air was growing warmer.

  The Merchant Master was still talking. “Fhaveon has stood proud for four hundred returns, unthreatened for lifetime after lifetime. And we have seen no daemon.” The word was scornful, with a tinge of threat.

  Somewhere in Rhan’s heart, a worm of fear was burrowing, beginning to curl. The air was making his breath catch in his throat.

  Don’t do this. Whatever you’re going to do, don’t do this...

  The people were beginning to mutter, shifting in their seats. The Merchant’s smile spread to a grin full of teeth.

  “My people, we stand at the edge of new beginning – of a time when we can finish the work that Adward began, when our very command of the terhnwood cycle can take control of the Varchinde entire. And I sa
y to you – that the daemon is no legend.”

  What? The air was close, humid. Under the brilliance of the white rocklights, people’s skin was beginning to glisten.

  Phylos held his hands higher. “Wait! Heed me and I will explain! I say to you that this ‘daemon’ is propaganda! It is a story perpetuated by this –” he indicated Rhan and the susurration of the crowd grew louder “– this man –” the word was spat “– so he can soak up our comforts and our time and our wealth and our work and do nothing.”

  The accusation was close enough to the truth to leave Rhan breathless. Something in him said, No, it wasn’t like that, I’ve always... But it was there, like a fibre-pin jabbing in his skin. If he had been fulfilling his mandate, he would have seen this coming, returns ago.

  Phylos did not stop. “He is a lodestone and a drain upon us, a figure of indolence and luxury. Who can know what takes place under the roofs of his home? I say, that if there is a daemon, it is the daemon sloth, it is the daemon idleness, it is the daemon that keeps us from our crafthalls and tithehalls and farmlands and markets! This – creature – has believed that he is above the laws of this city! He has traded in substances we abhor, he has corrupted our youth, he has –” and here he paused, arms raised completely and blazing with red fabric and rising heat “– murdered the loved Lord of this city and taken his wife by force –”

  “I did not – !” The cry was torn like a sob from Rhan’s throat – a cry of denial and horror. “I did not touch the Lord Demisarr, nor lay hands on his wife, I – !”

  “You lie, daemon!” Savagely, Phylos rounded on him, his red robes vivid as gore. He used his voice like a goad, forcing the crowd into a frenzy. “You are an infection! You have controlled and manipulated the sons of Saluvarith all your life! You have sat in this very room and pulled our strings like puppets! You claim innocence, yet you have inflicted such harm...!” He turned to Selana, overpowering in his presence and strength. “If he is innocent, my Lord, it is time for him to tell us the truth behind his longevity. The truth behind the bargains he has made that have given him four hundred returns of life!”

  Phylos turned back to Rhan with a curiosity that verged on avid.

  Flattened by Phylos’s demand, Selana, also, turned to look at him.

  “The Merchant Master is right,” she said. Her voice was small in the chaos, but the crowd quietened to hear her. “You are a blight upon the city – and a blight upon my family.” The word was a painful crack and she stood up, quivering with tension. “You are a drain upon our resources and a stagnation to our growth. Your time is done.”

  For a moment, Rhan could only stare at her.

  He said, his voice barely a growl, “Make no mistake, the daemon Vahl Zaxaar exists. And he will return.”

  But the words fell to the floor and he realised they sounded as ludicrous as Roderick’s visions. The crowd were tittering, some calling for answers and others for blood.

  His hands still bound, Rhan raised his voice to call over them.

  “All my life, Merchant Master,” he said, “I have guarded the children of Saluvarith, and I have watched the Grasslands flourish under Fhaveonic rule.” In the sea of people, jeers began. “I swore my oath of allegiance to the First Lord Foundersson Tekissari, who named me his Seneschal, and I have upheld that oath for four hundred returns. To whom have you sworn your allegiance, Phylos? To your own greed?”

  For a second, he almost had it. There was a moment of quiet, the stillness in the eye of the storm – a moment when Selana turned startled eyes upon her mentor, where Valicia’s gaze narrowed. Gorinel the priest studied Rhan intently. The soldier Mostak’s forehead lined as he strained to think.

  But Phylos laughed – astonished, disbelieving laughter that shattered the stillness like crystal.

  “You choose now to spread dissent?” He guffawed, as if at a great jest. Then his laughter was shut off. “Answer the question, Rhan. To whom have you sold your soul? To what?”

  Ignoring Phylos, ignoring the crowds’ mockery, Rhan faced Selana, and paused.

  The room was seething with heat.

  He sank to one knee.

  “I am Rhan, Lord Seneschal of Fhaveon,” he said. “And I swear by my Gods-given mandate that I am Dæl Rhan Elensiel, Master of Light, keeper of Saluvarith’s vision, and of this mortal world. I love and guard this city with everything I am. And when my damned brother returns... My Lord, heed me. Without me, you and everything you love will perish in flames and screaming.”

  The theatre was silent. Selana stared, stunned. Valicia’s skin was white.

  Then, somewhere in the crowd, Rhan could hear Scythe’s voice, shrieking accusations.

  Knowing he had only this one moment, the single chance to seize the situation, Rhan said, “You know your legends, my Lord. You know who and what I am, and why I have lived four hundred returns.” He raised his voice to call out up through the Theatre, his voice filling the room with sound. “And you know that I did not, could not, have raised my hand against the Lord Demisarr – or against his wife.”

  Gathering her wits, Selana opened her mouth to speak.

  But Phylos was frighteningly fast. “Would one of the Dæl import illegal drugs? Seduce the city’s idle and take them from their work? Host parties that damage and distress our youth?”

  Rhan stared.

  “I say you are a plague – a blight. I say you are arta ekanta, a daemon figment that has taken on the form of the city’s saviour!” Phylos moved around the edge of the table and raised his voice to an impassioned cry. “Perhaps you are Vahl Zaxaar! You are corruption in our midst!”

  Horrified by the speed with which Phylos had overturned his plea, Rhan tried to stop him.

  “No – !”

  “And I say you must die!”

  The soldiers stepped forwards to restrain him. About him, the crowd surged into outcry, demanding satisfaction. He looked for help, but there was no one to even meet his gaze.

  His failure could not have been more complete.

  There was no further assurance he could give, no way he could reclaim his place – the city belonged to Phylos and there was no move he could make.

  He collapsed to his knees, the heat sobbing in his chest.

  And they dragged him upright, and walked him from the theatre for the very last time.

  * * *

  Rammouthe Island.

  By legend, the Island Accurséd. The home of the Ilfead-Syr, the world’s lost memory. The last refuge of the sleeping Kas Vahl Zaxaar.

  From this height, it was grey line against the horizon, a hummock of darkness.

  No ship had touched its shore since the Bard’s disastrous reconnaissance, some forty returns previously. No foot had dared its soil. Stood upon the very top of the sheer, white wall that ran down the eastern edge of the Fhaveon to the roiling sea, Rhan wondered, rather foolishly, if they would release his wrists – if he should swim the Bava Strait and reach the island safely.

  And what would be waiting for him if he did.

  If anything still lay there, the island had swallowed it long ago and refused to give it up.

  The sky above Rhan’s final moments was vast and distant, merciless. If the Gods were there, they did not look down to see him. Images assaulted him – plummeting through air and cold and pain, war and chaos, stormy skies and hammering seas, scourging the city’s foes with light and with metal, Kas Vahl Zaxaar, closer than brother and powerful, terrible enemy...

  ...the tiny newborn that was the next Foundersson or daughter, holding each one in his white hands and promising them his loyalty until the end of the Count of Time...

  Rhan lifted his face to the wind.

  “A long wait, my estavah,” he said to the horizon. “And this is how it ends? Wake up, damn you. You owe me breakfast.”

  But, like the Gods, his brother did not heed him.

  It was Phylos who came to stand with him, red robes snapping in the cold wind. Further back, Valicia had come to watch and S
elana, Lord Foundersdaughter, stood with her mother’s hands on her shoulders. The warrior Mostak stood with them, looking for a moment like a sharper, colder version of his murdered brother. They were a family wronged, and he could see nothing in their faces that spoke of understanding.

  I did not do this. You must know...

  “Last words?” said Phylos softly.

  Then something crawled into the edges of Rhan’s awareness – something strange.

  With a peculiar shock, Rhan realised that the curious, sweating heat he had felt in the theatre was coming from the Merchant Master himself. In Phylos’s Archipelagan frame there burned eagerness, anticipation. Expectation. A whetted and savage hunger that was as familiar to Rhan as his own white light.

  Knowledge crystallised in an instant and, as though his own light had shown him, he understood.

  He understood.

  And the weight of it drove him to his knees.

  How could he have been so stupid? So phenomenally blind? How could he...?

  “No.” He wasn’t even aware that he’d said it aloud. “You can’t have...”

  “Oh but I can.” Phylos smiled at him like an old friend. “Rhan, your indolence has damned you as effectively as the words of Samiel himself. Your bonds hold you in honour – spiritually as well as physically – and in a moment, you will tumble from the top of this wall. When you do, the Varchinde loses her head.” He watched the horizon, still smiling. “Think, Rhan Elensiel, as you’re falling, so House Valiembor is falling with you. And it’s not the only one.” His warmth grew. “Your brother, your estavah – he stirs with might. And his time will come.”

  “Don’t do this. Whatever he offered you –”

  “Are those your last words?” Phylos laughed. “There will be no war, Rhan, why should there be? I hold the trade-life of the Varchinde in my hand. The city and the Grasslands belong to me. Why should there be returns of bloodshed, strife and fighting, back and forth, when these things can be so simple? The head –” he ran a finger across his throat “– and the heart.”

  Rhan said, “Roviarath. You damned bastard, what did you do?”

  Phylos reached out a hand and snapped a tiny fragment of metal around Rhan’s still-bound forearm. It burned – but Rhan didn’t know what it was.