Danie Ware - Ecko Rising

Real.

Maugrim was speaking again, his voice soft, insidious.

“You people, you’re all suffering – and I was told how to help you.”

He sat forward, and there was a chain in his hand, a flickering multicoloured light that danced back and forth.

“You should trust me, place your faith in me. I listen, I heed your pain and I heal.”

The chain swung gently.

“You misunderstand, don’t you? Yes, you know you do. The fire touches you – all of you. You, warrior, hate drives you, it burns in you and it’s made you strong. You, Amethea, you crave love, the love of the family you never had – and you’ll take that love, no matter how it’s offered. You, lady of the Banned, you’re all about desire – instant gratification, flesh, comfort, wealth. Karine, Sera, you’re outcasts that seek only family. And you, Bard with no memory, you poor deluded fool. You have such might – and you won’t use it; such strength – and you have no idea what it is. You’re a creature of fear, hiding behind the hoarding of knowledge so you don’t have to act. Rhan is gone – your greatest ally. You’ll never know how you failed him.”

Back and forth, enticing, compelling.

“There is love and forgiveness in Vahl’s heart – he’ll welcome you, all of you, and you can be free from the pain. You can belong.

“All you have to do is trust me.”

Triqueta said, voice low, “We trust you. What can we do?”

“And Ecko, Tam, lost and alone, striving for understanding. Lugan carries loyalty like a flag, he’d never abandon you, you know that. This has to be real, what else makes sense? Ecko, little daemon, Vahl Zaxaar knows you above all, he has a special place for you – you’re the darkness in which his fire burns brightest. It’s a place that’ll make all things make sense.

“Just trust me. I know you, all of you. And I can make you whole.”

Flickering, dancing light. Forgiveness and warmth radiated back from the walls as though Maugrim had tapped into the tavern’s lenslike focus, its welcome and sense of home. They stretched their hands to it, needing it like a warm bed on a cold night.

The table was still, captivated. Maugrim could do anything he wanted with them.

Except Kale.

In the freeze-frame, in the centre of the tableau, the cook came out of his seat, hands on the table. His voice was a concentrated husk of withheld fury as he said, “And what about me?” His grin was widening as though his mouth were full of knives. “What welcome do you have for me?”

The swing of the light paused.

Kale’s hands clenched on the tabletop. With a splintering of wood, there were claws embedded in its surface, dragging savage chunks out of its solidity. He was trembling, crouching, hair rippling across his skin – slowly, so slowly.

Maugrim stared. “You...” he said. “You’re new here. I don’t know you...”

“You will.”

And the beast was over the table in a scatter of mugs, a scrabble of talons, a bubbling snarl of pure hate. Burning, asymmetrical green eyes fixed on the light; claws ripped it from Maugrim’s gasp. Startled, the Elementalist held his hands up to shield his face and his chair went over backwards, crashing to the floor. In a moment, the beast pounced after him, lashing tail, dripping teeth, slavering death.

Roderick shouted, “Kale, no !”

Around him, the others were shaking themselves to consciousness, questions, shock. What had he done to them?

Sera bellowed, “Redlock! He fears white-metal!”

Snarling and struggling came from under the table. Maugrim was swearing.

“Get your bloody animal off me!”

“Don’t hurt him!” Karine cried. “Not if you can help it!”

In the midst of the commotion, Ecko hadn’t moved.

Redlock skidded round the table’s end, grabbed the beast by the scruff and dragged it back from worrying at Maugrim’s bloodied throat. As it growled and thrashed, tail sending scattered mugs in all directions, he held one axe right under its nose.

“Kale. I don’t want to hurt you. Back off.”

The beast turned to him and snarled.

“Back off!” He thumped its nose with the back of the axe. It slashed randomly at him, rear claws raking the floor. “Now!”

“Kale.” The Bard’s voice was steady, strong. “You have never hurt a guest. Please – not even this one. His blood is not worth your soul.”

“Now!”

With a shudder that seemed to wrench flesh from bone, the beast was gone.

And Kale the cook was falling back, blood across his mouth and chin, pushing the axe from his face. His was white, shaking violently.

“I’m okay, I’m okay.” He wiped his face, looked at his hands, grimaced. “Sorry about that... I guess he annoyed me...”

“No shit.” Redlock hadn’t put the axe away. “You calm now?”

“Yes, I...” Still wiping, spitting, he scrambled backwards from where Maugrim lay, blood soaking his chest. “Yes. Yes.” He started to scratch like a man infected.

Karine was by him. “It’s all right, it’s all right. It’s over.”

“It is indeed.” In an unconscious parody, Roderick placed one foot on Maugrim’s chest. He said bleakly, “Tell me about Phylos.”

Ecko muttered, “This isn’t real. It can’t be.”

Maugrim spat blood, blood stained his teeth and ran from his throat in rivulets, soaking the sawdust, staining the floor.

Roderick’s voice was cold steel. “Tell me, Ralph, or I shall throw you in the midden and leave you to die.”

“You pick a fine time to find your balls, Rick.” Maugrim laughed bloody bubbles.

Ecko said, “This isn’t fucking real.”

The Bard’s voice slashed back from the walls. “Tell me about Phylos!”

“I don’t know, guv. And I wouldn’t tell you if I did.”

“Enough head games. Tell me!”

Head games.

The phrase crystallised Ecko’s fury like the shine of the Sical itself.

Head games.

The final trick: the final test.

Profile.

This fucker was Eliza made manifest: Maugrim was his in-situ shrink. Rummaging around in Ecko’s head, building lock-ups like familiarity, loosing fire-beasties that touched him to the very soul... playing hypno-the-rapist with a fucking hexidecimal pocket watch...

Head games. All of it. Fucking head games.

In the echoes of Roderick’s anger, Ecko felt the relief of the fiction closing back in about him – and this time, he took refuge in it. He needed it and it made sense to him.

He’d started in a teleporting tavern, for chrissakes. He’d gone down a dungeon and splatted a Big McNasty. He was a bit short on the treasure front, but he had saved the girl. Of course it was a fucking program – it had to be – who the hell did this asshole think he was kidding?

Yeah, I got this now.

He rounded on Maugrim, on the Bard. “All right, fuckwit, that’s it. You’ve seen my profile? You so know I don’t like having people fuck with my head. ” He stood to his full height, looked down at the still-defiant Maugrim with his head cocked sideways, his teeth bared. “Nice try with the pocket watch routine.”

Around him, the others were tense, watching him.

“You know what? I am insane. I’m a pyrophile and a madman and a fucking megalomaniac. And Eliza designed a whole Virtual Rorschach just for me. And you? Are just a figment of her code, of my imagination. And you know what that means?

Maugrim was laughing at him.

“You came back to fuck us up – hand us over. You filthy bag of shit.”

Ecko jumped at him, adrenals kicking, faster than the taproom could react. He was on the floor, his hands were wrapped in the front of Maugrim’s cut down, the smooth slide of long-oiled denim under his fingers.