Ecko Endgame

by Danie Ware

  And over the edge it went again. A second, shorter scream, a second flash of terror and exhilaration. A rush round a bend, a rattle and a clatter.

  Still, the Kazyen pulled.

  But the others were there with him, blazing. He was closer to them than he’d ever been to anything in his life, to family, his half sisters, Mom’s other creations. The lines of the Flux were there, tying them together, blood and fire and sparks and light.

  Ah, she said. We come almost to the final hand. I’m so proud of you. All of you.

  The roller coaster screamed again. It cornered, sharp and swift, voices cried in layered concert. And then Ecko felt something snap, something give and break – something in the soil, in the Flux, something in the world herself…

  They clattered into the station, and they stopped.

  What the hell…?

  He found himself on the ground, shaking, his arms and legs as weak as water. He was coughing, laughing, covered in ash. Fucksake, he wanted to puke.

  Roderick and Rhan were leaning on each other in an embrace like years of friendship. Selana stood close, her face pale and her expression oddly, almost childishly, bemused. The great shadow of the Kas was still with her.

  Then Ecko saw Amethea lying on the dead ground, the moss still in her skin.

  Around all of them, the Flux was steadying, the huge drain slackening. The pull of the fissure was less. As his darkness thinned into normal night, Ecko couldn’t see the lines of power as clearly, but he could feel them – faint flashes in his skin, like sparks that tickled on his nerve endings.

  “So – what the fuck was that?” His voice was harsh, a serrated cut of reality through wonder. “Did we fix it?” He called the question at the Lord of Amos, his tone bitter, edged with savagery. “Did we slay the dragon? Is spring gonna spring out the ground, now?”

  The energy in him was fading, thinning out into the air. Its loss was impossible, more than he could bear. To have gone that high, just to come down…!

  “Do we get a party?” His voice faltered. His face was sore from its rictus black grin. Somehow, he’d chewed the insides of his mouth to bloody ribbons. “Do we visit the Guild and level up? What the hell did we just do?”

  About him, the air was settling, clearing.

  “To face Kazyen,” Roderick said, his voice deep as night, “we had to have the full Powerflux. That’s what the Ryll told me, every soul, united and together. It was so gloriously simple – but we’d been made to forget.”

  Forget.

  Ecko could feel the last of the flickerings in his skin, in his wiring and cybernetics. He repeated, almost numbly, “Been made to forget.”

  Across the broken grey stone, the Bard had removed his scarf. His expression was younger, had lost the weight of its years of lone belief. As he raised his face to the sky, his steel throat glittering, Ecko could see that his face was damp with tears.

  Then he met Ecko’s eyes and smiled.

  The look was warm, genuine; a look of humour and grief and success and loss and wonder, of achievement beyond impossible odds. It made Ecko bite his lip and turn away, refusing to let his own emotion show. Roderick had fought so long, struggled so long…

  You’ve done it, the Bard said, the words in Ecko’s ears alone. The blight falters, and the Flux begins to flow as it should. Truly, Ecko, you’re our augured champion, the saviour of our world.

  Ecko’s eyes prickled and he bit down harder, hurting his sore mouth. The storm was almost over. Ecko could feel the others drifting backwards, their closeness fading…

  You’ve done it.

  Had he?

  Truly, Ecko, you’re our augured champion.

  But then…

  Why the hell am I still here?

  Nervousness began to crawl down his back, trailing like cold sweat. The others withdrew further, and he shivered at their absence, suddenly alone and feeling his mortality return. Nivrotar had said, We come almost to the final hand, not, Congratulations, dude, you’ve won, here’s a vacation for two in Hawaii.

  But the Bard was speaking, his voice clear as morning. “Memory returns – the words the Ryll showed me, the words long buried in the Great Library at Amos. The words she showed Ress and Jayr.” His voice deepened, now almost like intonation, “‘Time when Substance of the Gods, has lost its heart of fire. Time when Promised is released, to promise yet more dire. Time shall mastery of light, give up, and lose the will to fight. Time the Flux begins to crack, to rage becomes a crime. Time Nothing is more powerful, at last, than Count of Time. Then Time you bid your world farewell, your Gods, tonight, they sleep in Hell.’” He was coming closer to Ecko as he spoke, his voice getting ever deeper. “‘Time when Final Guardian, defeated at the last, time when passion cannot sing, and everything held fast. Time your world farewell be kissed, unless you find the—’”

  “Catalyst.” Ecko spat the word, hearing Ress’s voice saying it, even as he did so. “Catamite, catatonic, catalytic fucking converter. Chrissakes.” Still off-centre with hollow loss and unease, with his strange and nebulous fear, he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. “Now you remember the ubiquitous prophecy?” It was a piss-take, Eliza having a laugh; he couldn’t wrap his head round it. “Oh, this takes the motherfucking cookies. What kind of fantasy gives you the prophecy at the end?” He didn’t know whether to laugh or punch things. “Oh, you bitch!”

  Roderick laughed, rich and free, a laugh that cleared the grey of the sky and warmed the air around him. He was sharing Ecko’s disbelief, his humour at the irony – shared the fucking great joke the world had apparently played on all of them.

  Rhan knelt over Amethea, his growl like gravel, “All right, it’s not that funny.”

  “It really is.” The Bard’s laugh faded to a chuckle. “All that searching and seeking and hand-wringing, all that hope and work and struggle, everything I fought for and preached about. For so many returns…” The colour was fading from his voice as he spoke, replaced by perplexity. “The tavern, they used to say it travelled through every point at once, which was how it knew all people, all places. I remember the day Nivrotar gave it to me, and I remember losing it. Karine. My friends. Our long travels. The cat…” The sentence tailed into silence, and the air above him thickened. The wind was cold. “All that… all that was pointless. For nothing.”

  Nothing.

  The word hung like ash in the air.

  The wind breathed soft, like a threat. Under its touch, the ground rumbled, ever so slightly, like some stirring, sleeping creature.

  He could hear Rhan, his voice distant and soft as a smothering cushion. “Wake up. Amethea, little sister, it’s over. You can wake up now…”

  Whatever it was, Ecko could feel it too. Flickers of disquiet, flashes of unrest in the Flux. Spasms. The pull was returning, subtler now, deep and cold. Mocking. The recovering Flux faltered, sucking back towards the centre, towards the fissure and the pull of Kazyen.

  Shit.

  Whatever it was down there, it wasn’t fucking dead. Hell, like all bad guys, the damn thing had to come back at least once.

  Roderick said, “No…” but the word was barely a breath. A wisp of horror that was gone as the wind began to pick up. “No…”

  Ecko stared at the hole.

  We come almost to the final hand.

  Almost.

  But it wasn’t cigar time yet.

  Around him, the others were fading, weakened by comedown. Angel and daemon, mortal and immortal – their elation and energy were spent. Perhaps the Kazyen had lured it out of them, Ecko didn’t know, but they had nothing left, and now it was returning, soft and grey and insidious. Ecko watched as Roderick slumped, staring at his hands as if he’d trashed the damn Wanderer himself, watched as Rhan tumbled down beside Amethea, Vahl with him as vast hatred and equally vast love both faded to nothing. The Kas were gone, smoke on the wind.

  Comedown.

  No, you’re not doin’ it to me, you fucker, you’re so not doin’ it to
me…

  But he could feel it, like the effects of Grey’s drugs in Amal’s vision.

  Give up, it said, just let it go. You’ll be so much happier. There’s no need to worry about anything now, no need for passion. Love and hate, elation and despair, they’re all spent, all gone. Just let go…

  No I will not!

  Swearing, fighting, refusing to be fucking damned, he came to his feet and walked to the edge of the hole.

  It yawned for him, a mouth wide and grinning.

  It beckoned.

  The Monument had fallen here, The Wanderer. This was the place where all this had fucking started.

  And hell, if that wasn’t a goddamned message, then he didn’t know what was.

  Turn to 500.

  Remembering how he’d once fallen from the roof of a South Bank tower, an age and a world before, Ecko turned and took a last look at his friends. He had no words for them, no soggy goodbyes, but he wanted to hold them in his oculars like a photograph, wanted to remember this moment, all of them, always.

  Rhan, Amethea, the Bard…

  Triqueta.

  He swallowed, blinked.

  But he couldn’t manage the goodbye, it was too much.

  As he’d once done on London’s South Bank, a world and an eternity away, he stepped over the edge.

  30: CATALYST

  THE WANDERER

  Ecko drifted through layers of consciousness.

  “…a fascinating journey.” The speaker was male, familiar, though Ecko couldn’t place where from. His head was clouded with fug; as the voice hazed into focus, he groped for a name. “Watching your slow loss of self has been… enlightening.”

  Soft footsteps moved somewhere behind where Ecko lay. The voice was faintly amused, oddly paternal. “All that rage, all that passion, and in the end, you got… shall we say, ‘nothing’ out of it?”

  Ecko couldn’t think. His head and limbs felt heavy; he’d been sleeping very deeply. The last thing he remembered…

  Shall we say… nothing?

  The word was a shiver of unease. His mind offered images, pieces of memories; his body flickered with tension. Breathing still slow, he strove to focus, to put the images together and to remember what’d happened.

  Had there been a hit?

  Bloody handprints across a shattered wall?

  The voice was on his other side, now, disorienting. “You failed, Mister Gabriel. It was a brave attempt, don’t misunderstand. You did manage to reach the final confrontation, and with all of the correct pieces in place – and that in itself was no mean feat. You saw it through to the end, and you gave it everything you had.” His voice held a soft smile, gently patronising. “But that last confrontation proved too much for you.” It was right over him, now. “The program is over, Ecko. It’s time to wake up.”

  The program is over…

  Program.

  The word was like a download – a deluge of memory that blurred into a single, blazing comprehension…

  Grey.

  The man speaking was Doctor Slater Grey.

  Program.

  It’s time to wake up.

  He’d fallen – he remembered it now – the ’bot and the weather. They’d scraped him off the tarmac like a lump of strawberry jam. But that wasn’t all – there were other memories, bright and poignant, somehow interwoven. The Wanderer, the Bard, the ruins at Tusien, Triqueta…

  Gone.

  And then he woke up and it was all a dream.

  Stupidly, his first conscious thought was that he’d let them down.

  But as the memories came stronger, faces and voices, their loss left him breathless and doubled over, a fist in the gut. His denial was reflexive – No, it’s impossible. There was no way that they could all just be gone.

  Program.

  He’d lost them, failed them.

  They’d never existed.

  Grey’s soft laugh smothered his thoughts, silenced them. A warm hand touched his face, and his eyelids flickered, he couldn’t stop them. Inwardly, he cursed.

  “Ah,” Grey said. The touch withdrew, the feet moved again. “All that defiance, and rage, and angst, and bad language – and yet still you came to understand love.” He chuckled. “How poetic.”

  “Fuck you.” Knowing the game was up, Ecko opened his eyes. Bad language – he sounded like some fucking social skills counsellor. Ecko was fucking gonna tell this fucking asshole where he could fucking shove his fucking—

  But the words died in his throat.

  He stared at his surroundings in wordless bewilderment, his mind clamouring, panicked.

  What the…?

  He was in The Wanderer.

  Or what was left of it.

  * * *

  He didn’t understand, didn’t understand!

  This was some kinda mind game, for chrissakes – this was the same fucking couch. He’d woken up here, in this exact spot, when the Bard and Karine had first come to speak to him. That memory pulled at him now, like lost friendship and forgotten warmth.

  For just a moment, he wanted to cry like a kid, just throw himself down and give up.

  But The Wanderer itself was not the same.

  The couch under him was broken, its back fractured and seats sagging. Straw stuffing spilled across stained and faded rugs. The table he’d shattered was still there, its pieces split and ageing, the wood rotten. The walls were patched with damp, their white peeling and their beams cracked. The mica windows were shot through with glittering splits, several had fallen out completely and the curtains had tumbled, forgotten and mouldering, to the floor. Dark mouths of decay ate through everything, as if the building had stood abandoned for a very, very long time.

  The floor blew cold with debris.

  Holy shit.

  Ecko looked upwards, maybe for light, maybe for help, but the roof, too, was blotched and sagging. At one side of the room, it had fallen in completely and a hollow darkness spilled through the gap.

  Horror settled over him like a shroud.

  No, no, no, no, no…

  His throat was tight, his eyes prickling. He blinked, breathed hard. The Wanderer’s warmth, its welcome and homecoming, was something that’d once touched him to the core, something he’d missed almost as much as the Bike Lodge. How could it…?

  “How long?” The question was all he could manage, but Grey understood.

  He said, “There’s no time here.”

  Ecko sat up, turned round.

  Doc Grey was stood almost exactly where the Bard had once been. He’d put aside his white coat and wore faded jeans, a battered leather, a prog-rock tee so old it was more hole than fabric. With his flesh-tunnels and his long black ponytail, he looked like a direct mockery of Roderick – the old Roderick – like this whole thing was some fucking send-up of Ecko’s first awakening.

  Another layer of the game.

  Was this what Nivrotar had meant when she’d said, Almost to the final hand?

  Hell, maybe he wasn’t unplugged. Maybe that was why he could still think, could feel, why Grey hadn’t just dosed him. Maybe…

  The insight brought him properly awake, adrenaline sparking, thrilled and curious. His oculars were kicked now. He needed answers, needed to understand.

  He said, black teeth bared, “Whaddaya mean ‘no time’?” Hell, maybe this was the Dark Castle, and Grey was the Final Boss, the Evil Sorcerer, the End-of-Level Mega-nasty… It did have a kinda symmetry to it.

  Yeah. Whatever the hell he was, Ecko was gonna kick his fucking head clean off his fucking shoulders.

  “The Count of Time is gone. Defeated at the last.” Grey spread his arms, revealing vertical scars up the insides of both wrists. “Only you and I can exist on its outside.” His face was calm, but his expression was oddly eager, almost whetted. “The world created for you is gone, Ecko, it died because you failed to save it. I was its first God, and its last, its forgotten God, its empty window.” He gave a faint bow, gestured to the ruin around them. “This is
the void.”

  “This is the pub, you asshole.”

  Grey shrugged and spread his hands further, inviting Ecko to see for himself.

  “Dickhead.” Kicking free of couch straw, Ecko stood up to look.

  And as he did so, he became very aware of the darkness outside the hole in the roof – a darkness completely unlike his previous experience. This was not the starless night of the Varchinde, or living soul of dark, or the rich life and history of Mom’s Underground.

  This was Kazyen – true emptiness. It was an absence of all things, all passion, all feeling, all life and time.

  I was its first God, and its last.

  Its empty window.

  There was – literally – Nothing outside the ruin of the shattered Wanderer.

  The Count of Time is gone.

  This is the void.

  Cold crept across Ecko’s skin like frost up a window. He groped for something, a key, a weapon. A magick fucking ring.

  What had the Bard said?

  He heard the words as if Roderick was there with him – and now he wasn’t fucking laughing at them.

  At the prophecy, the memory they’d only found at the very end.

  Time Nothing is more powerful, at last, than Count of Time. Then Time you bid your world farewell, your Gods, tonight, they sleep in Hell.

  Oh my fucking God.

  Ecko’s adrenaline stopped, his breathing halted. He was too tense even to shiver – and he looked slowly down to his feet and then across the ruined rug to where the void seeped down from the broken roof.

  And they were there, all of them, just as if they’d fallen down the fissure after him.

  Roderick, lost in his own building. The Final Guardian, defeated at the last. Rhan and Vahl, in Selana’s skin, as inseparable as they’d always been. Then shall the mastery of light, give up… Amethea, cured of her growth of moss – and the others were there too. Redlock as he had been, master warrior, Triqueta, younger, curled on his shoulder, her hand on his chest as if to deliberately taunt Ecko with their closeness. The stones in her skin gleamed and her eyes were open. And at the far end, Nivrotar herself, as helpless as the others, staring empty at the sagging roof.

  Time when passion cannot sing, and everything held fast. Time your world farewell be kissed…