Ecko Rising

by Danie Ware

  He said, “Or do I find some truth in the Final Showdown – and go on to Save the World?”

  There was a figure within it, indistinct, yet powerful and glorious.

  Oh dear fucking God.

  And it called him by name.

  It sent sparks through his blood, illuminated his weakness, touched him, stroked his soul with impossible insight. Fire was domination and recognition, destruction and statement – but it was defender and protector, warmth and security, love – the family he’d shunned as a child, the acceptance he craved and scorned.

  Worthy, you. Grant everything you wish.

  Tamarlaine Benjamin Gabriel, the slender, pale no one who had surrendered his humanity to become a comic-book anti-hero – become the Ecko, the nightmare, the ghost in the darkness – and it shone upon his darkest heart, the desires he dared not form. It saw them, took them and offered them back to him.

  Dream, you. Desire, you. Grant everything you wish.

  Champion, more than human, phantom and legend and costumed icon – untouchable by pain, unreachable by love. The public knew him: they devoured his headlines and were amazed by his deeds... but they never reached him. He was enigma and mystery, in complete control of his own reputation.

  Then why had he gone to Lugan on Fawkes’ Night, why had he gone?

  The creature answered him.

  Hear your loneliness, I. Understand.

  Fire, the Bard had once said, was a God of Truth.

  Grant you the world, I. Burn or secure for you.

  Eliza had taken away everything he’d acquired, everything that gave “Ecko” validation. In its place, she’d been peeling him back to Tamarlaine. She’d tempted him with physical love. Now she offered him – what – family?

  Or was she tempting him – giving him the chance to burn it the fuck down, just as he’d wanted to at the beginning? Raze it all, prove he didn’t care, prove he was no one’s fucking toy?

  Was this the exit he’d craved?

  Turn back to page one.

  Or was it fail and reboot?

  She was still fucking with his head.

  “You know what you can do?” His voice ricocheted from the walls, shattering into the harsh sounds of a real, snarling challenge. “You can just kiss my chameleon ass!”

  And all hell broke loose about them.

  Above him, a fragment of the stone wall tumbled to shatter upon the floor. Ecko jumped, half turned, but ahead of him came a rasping grind of stone – the floor was sliding, like tomb lids scraping from their places. His nostrils caught the scent of burned flesh.

  He yowled at the shattered roof, “Yeah? Bring it the fuck on!”

  But he was drowned out by a second crash of falling masonry. They had no cover, nowhere to run – they found themselves surrounded now by the hazy outlines of two dozen figures in flickering, fiery robes, surrounded by their rising chant. As if they sensed him looking, one raised its face to smile at him – its mouth was full of flame.

  Tarvi’s vision: he would have burned her to death.

  The fire pillar was taking form as the sounds caressed it. In a moment, the strange chanting reached a crescendo and came to an abrupt, expectant stop. Hazy figures raised their hands in ecstatic worship as a coalescence began.

  Ecko was transfixed. He hung on to Lugan’s lighter like an anchor, but he could only stare.

  Cloaked in heat and power and beauty, impossibly tall and crystalline in gracefulness, bewinged like an angel but blistering their skins with heat, the flame-creature rose incandescent, spreading arms and wings.

  With an inarticulate cry, Ecko was on his knees as if his every dream had manifest for his fulfilment.

  Redlock backed, wide-eyed and unsure, pushing Triqueta with him. The heat made them raise their arms to shield their faces.

  Above them, the drifting figures began to chant again, softly. Slowly, they rose, their hair and robes had become sparks and flame.

  Insanely, in the middle of the furnace, Ecko’s oculars caught movement. A figure – pale, female, desperate – crawling behind the broken base of a statue. She was curled about her belly, watching the wavering heat of the Sical with an expression of terror – and a peculiar, savage sense of righteousness.

  It spoke to them, in a soft, warm voice that crackled with power.

  Promised fuel, you. Need, I.

  “I... We...” Triqueta stumbled over words, staggered by this glorious fire-creature that crisped the hairs on their arms. “You’re... You’re trapped? Enslaved?” It was a brave shot. “Let us help you.”

  Its head angled towards her, its eyes the blazing white of melting metal. It had no features, just a body of flame.

  Hunger, I.

  The spinning figures turned faster, becoming a wheel of sparks all around them, their chant continuing to circle. The Sical paid them no attention.

  Awakened, I. Give fuel, you.

  With a shriek, the wheel of ghosts stopped turning, and the figures swooped like vultures, hands reaching and faces stretched with glee. Redlock slashed madly, but burning claws caressed Ecko’s cheek, setting off explosions in his skull and making him crumble further to the floor. The fire breath of the spirits yammered in his face and his head started to spin up into the air with them.

  “Cedetine!” Incredibly, the cry had come from the cowering girl – she was obviously hurt, but her sheer determination rang from the walls. Near her, there was a smaller brazier, a stone bowl set into the floor. As Ecko hauled himself back to his feet, the girl shoved her bare hand into it and hurled the contents at the manically swooping figures.

  “Shit!” he shouted, and ducked.

  Redlock and Triqueta fell back.

  Bright sparks of fury struck the flaming, ghostly shape and it began to really burn, its mouth open in a shout of glee.

  Or was it pain?

  Or was it both?

  For a moment, it raged incandescent, and Ecko watched with horrified fascination.

  There was a deafening blast, and the light exploded. Beside it, another ignited, and another. Their crackling voices screeched to a climax of power – and they were taken by their own conflagration.

  Aftershocks rocked the walls. More of them split and tumbled to shatter on the hard stone floor.

  The Sical paused.

  But the girl’s voice rose amid the noise and the raging, a rallying cry – a cry of such pain – and such strength...

  “To Cedetine, World Goddess and Mother, I seal this Chapel by Fire. To Cedetine, World Goddess and Mother, I seal this Chapel by Light. To Cedetine, World Goddess and Mother, I seal this Chapel by –”

  “By blood, little priestess. Yours.”

  In the sudden, shocking silence, the voice could only belong to Maugrim.

  The fire spirits were white ash, drifting downwards like chaff. Above the softly crackling Sical, they rose once more, carried by its heat.

  “By right of foresight – by right of doing what no one else can.”

  Triqueta had run to the girl.

  Redlock’s tension was palpable – he was itching to fight.

  But Ecko stared, stunned.

  The man’s accent had been pure South London – and his clothes...

  He was wild haired, bearded, his denim cut-down and oil-stained jeans more familiar to Ecko than anything he’d seen. They looked like the lock-up, like Lugan – like home. As Maugrim walked to meet them, firelight glittered from multiple silver rings.

  Across his shoulders, he had six-plus feet of heavy steel chain.

  The compulsion of the Sical was still tugging at his oculars, his nerves, his heart – temptation, validation, failure – he needed to know what it was.

  Ecko wanted to speak to the greaser, its master, somehow reach him and ask him – for chrissakes – so many questions. How are you here? What happened to you? Is this real or in my fucking head? From the lock-up and familiar, oil-stained denim, he had a sense of aching kinship that held him silent – because he had no idea wh
at to say.

  By right of foresight – by right of doing what no one else can.

  Everything seemed to have closed on this moment, on the silver rings on Maugrim’s fingers, on the white eyes of the Sical.

  But Ecko was silent a moment too long – and Eliza took the chance from him.

  He saw Redlock advance with his axes gleaming in his hands. He saw Maugrim unloop the chain from his shoulders and began to spin it, fantastically dextrous figure-eights, flashing in the firelight.

  The axeman would chop him into fish food, chain or no chain. For just a moment, his instinct screamed at him to go after Redlock.

  He needed to know!

  But his eyes were still drawn to the burning form of the Sical.

  Hunger, I. Need, I.

  Its flame-limned arms opened towards the writhe of the stalactite high above and it blazed with the promise of supremacy.

  Around them, the stone army ground into life.

  27: SICAL

  THE MONUMENT

  The flame-angel burned, mighty as a Fawkes-night detonation, hurling its fire into the cavern like a shout. Sparks leapt from it, the wash of heat was incredible.

  It was glorious, compelling and fascinating and destructive. Fed by the stone capacitor from above and by blood from below, it was the heart of the fractal pattern, the single image that would repeat itself endlessly, consuming, expanding.

  Tarvi had shown him a taste of its glory.

  Ecko’s adrenals were awakening: he could feel the buzz in his kidneys, the thrill starting to sparkle in his blood. He was poised on a blade-edge of indecision – to take down the axeman, to free the creature and burn this whole fucking mockery to ash...

  Turn back to page one!

  But Lugan’s lighter was cool in his hand. The elemental was fatal. It would make his program fall to pieces around him, code crashing on the screen he’d never seen...

  Head games.

  Everything his Tech had done to him, everything she’d put him through and given him – he’d asked her for all of it. Because Tamarlaine needed to be Ecko.

  And Ecko was a fucking hero. Whatever.

  Yeah, this world has one fucking champion, and that would be me! Call my bluff, willya, bitch – I make my own fucking choices!

  In the centre of the conflagration, the white-hot eyes were still visible. A nebulous, fiery arm reached out to them. It held the fascination he’d known all his life. Like a person with vertigo feels that irrepressible urge to jump, so Ecko now understood. He let himself fall, he let the fire light him, he opened himself to his own power and passion.

  Stop fucking fretting already, stop second-guessing yourself. You are Patient fucking Zero. Whatever power there is – control it. You are the damned fractal – the pattern spreads from you!

  His adrenals screamed as they hit overdrive.

  * * *

  From behind where Ecko raged, Redlock came past him, dodged through the gaps left by the open sarcophagi, and lunged, double slash, for the figure of Maugrim.

  The Elementalist’s attention had been thrown high and wide – as though he, too, raged with the Sical’s fire – but he was still quick enough to dodge the axe blades. The chain lashed in twin figure-eights, to his left and then right. He crossed the ends over as though they were as light as rope.

  Redlock’s brown eyes narrowed at this display of skill – they were close to the fire, and the huge brazier sprang sweat from his skin.

  The Sical’s life glistened from the chain, made the axeman’s red hair blaze. As Redlock moved in for the second attack, first one end of the chain and then the other caught him across the ribs. He staggered in pain. Maugrim paced him, round the brazier’s edge, still backing away from the range of the short-handled axes.

  But in Redlock’s ears raged the adrenaline of his battle lust. The pain caused a surge of fury that made him grin, tight and eager. This was the feeling he knew with every nerve ending. He welcomed it to him and his anger uncurled, precise and targeted.

  He knew how to fight two-handed, knew the tricks and how to avoid them. The impressive double whirl should gain the offensive, it was a tactic he understood. With fast feet, he went forwards. Both ends of the chain whipped past him, catching his hair as they crossed over. He spun the axes easily, hitting Maugrim in the belly and slashing deep. The Elementalist coughed blood, but did not pause. Bracing his weight, he surged forwards, and in one swift movement, wrapped the length of chain between his hands about Redlock’s neck.

  And fought to tighten it.

  The chain-ends lost their coordination and clashed to a stop.

  Redlock couldn’t breathe. His lungs strained for air, he could feel the pressure in his face. The heat became anger. He’d not crossed weapons with this madman to die at his blood-blackened hands.

  For Feren. For his damned wife, his daughter.

  Grunting, he threw his weight forwards into the loop. Maugrim, surprised, crashed to the floor, Redlock’s knee in his cut stomach. One axe whipped over the chain and upwards.

  The Elementalist coughed blood; it streamed from his nose and mouth and matted his beard.

  The axe blade was almost in his face. He let go of the chain with one hand, catching the shaft, trying to push the warrior’s weight off him. Redlock tried to pull backwards, but Maugrim broke his nose with the other, chain-wrapped, fist. The axeman fell backwards, losing his grip on his axes and skidding to the floor. His head bounced off the stalagmite pillar and he shook himself, half stunned.

  The Sical blazed above him.

  Maugrim got his feet under him, kicked the axes behind him and grinned.

  Weaponless, sharp needles of pain jabbing into his face, Redlock grabbed one end of the chain, and pulled.

  But Maugrim held it firm. He swung the free end a couple of times to build momentum, then smashed Redlock across the shoulder as he pulled himself to his feet. Whipping it back, he struck again across the other shoulder, the chain slashing through the fire and spilling sparks. For a moment they played tug of war, but upright now – Redlock let go.

  Maugrim staggered. Redlock skidded past him, scrabbled for a second, then spun back with axes in hands.

  They stalked each other again. Redlock’s nose splashed across his face. Maugrim’s belly cut seeping, but not deep enough. The Elementalist’s eyes reflected the fire of the Sical, but Redlock fought for Feren’s death and with certainty born from long returns of winning. He would not back down.

  * * *

  Before Ecko, the statues were grinding into motion.

  Rank upon rank of them, eyes of fire and stained grey stone graunching into life as if the Sical were their master. But Ecko was fighting now, his speed inhuman, his targeters flashing, crossing, homing – faster than a thought and flickering like a twist of darkness. His fear and doubt had been burned away in the decisiveness of motion.

  He was a fucking hero.

  One foot, a powered kick that sent the first shambling attacker staggering backwards, its chest cracked like the rotting stonework of the walls. His own shout echoed back to him. He crouched, his fists before his chest and face, switched feet and kicked again, his targeters leading him, plotting trajectory and weak point. His blood sang with oxygen. A second impact, a second stone critter halted in its tracks – and it simply crumbled, a rumble of rubble crashing to the floor.

  With a spin, he took out a third, a lashing piston kick that dropped it, crashing backwards and shattering into pieces.

  They came on, closing around him, almost closer than he could take out – but he was on fire. One foot struck under the chin of a fourth and took its stone head clean off its shoulders.

  Their eyes glowed sullen, they were walling him in, reaching for him with pitted grey hands – they ground as they moved, stone zombies from a forgotten graveyard. A savage spin-kick took out a fifth, axed back for a sixth. The rubble was building round him.

  You see me now, Eliza? Huh?

  He had so been waiting for this
.

  * * *

  At the cathedral’s heart, still trapped by the brazier, the Sical raged livid – imprisoned and furious. It spoke now, crying out in its own liquid-and-crystal tongue, but it could not get free.

  Beside it, Redlock and Maugrim fought back and forth, savage and desperate.

  Amethea had denied the elemental the last of its fuel. She was weak, battered, burned and bloodless – but she was on her feet, and the stone resolution in her heart was at last set. No more fear.

  Beside her, the Banned woman was arrow nocked, guarding her charge, but watching Redlock for an opening, watching the shadow thing – whatever it was – spinning like a daemon in the midst of the incoming shamblers.

  Stone splintered and shattered as it struck. It had a grace and fighting style she’d never seen – its feet slammed like weapons and the shamblers exploded into dust.

  She had dreamed about it – black eyed and fierce.

  “Thank you,” she said, belatedly. Stupid, unnecessary, inadequate. “Feren, did he – ?”

  “He died – but he found us first. He was braver than I’ve ever seen. I’m Triqueta.” She gave a weary grin. “I’m no apothecary, but I did nab this off the girl that was.”

  Died. Amethea was numb: there was an odd hollow where her grief should have been.

  She stared at the pouch, scattering contents across the blood-spiral stone.

  And in it, at last, after everything: the taer. The pollen they’d left Xenok to find.

  Something in her heart found it funny, bitter, outrageous. She was laughing, hurting, crying – Feren was dead, but Redlock was here. The nightmare was over.

  Relief choked her. It was so long unlooked for – and it fought like a daemon almost within her reach.

  Triqueta thumped her shoulder gently, awkwardly affectionate. Amethea smiled, striving for control – but then her eyes were drawn to the dark length of the stalactite, slithering still towards the fire, striving to complete the conduit.

  She had started this. Her inability to resist Maugrim’s charm had ended in this madness, in this rising promise of destruction.