Danie Ware - Ecko Rising

Sera stood like a wall, unspeaking.

Karine called from behind the bar top, “Morning! Are you trader or worker? If you’re here to get legless, you’ll have to wait until highsun when we’re fully stocked.”

“Please,” the young man said, looking from face to face. “I’m neither. I came to ask a question.”

And he-eere we go... With a mirthless smirk, Ecko shrank back, watching. So – what’s it gonna be? Great Mage? Demon? Dark Druid? Put your cards down, Eliza, let’s see whatcha got...

“Of course.” The Bard came to his feet. “What can we do for you?”

When a fellow behind him gave him a nudge, the young man swung the heavy, drawstring bag onto the nearest table. It hit with a thump. Ecko’s oculars kicked and tracked, but the contents were heavy, motionless and cold.

Dead, or he was a monkey’s asshole.

The boy opened the string. With some effort, he pulled free a creature.

Ecko spun his telescopics.

The beastie was unfamiliar, but dead as fuck. It was doglike, long legged and skinny, though deep chested with powerful back legs and a balancing tail. It could probably stand on its hind paws if it had to, or spring extremely high – certainly high enough to see over tall grass.

Intrigued now, Ecko shifted so he could see it properly. Oh c’mon, what’s it gonna do? Animate? Skeletal lich dog? Oh, you so know you wanna...

The thing just lay there.

Karine bawled, “Oi! Get that off my table!”

But Kale was in the kitchen doorway, his face bothered and frowning.

Ecko tensed, but the cook’s temperature was normal. He seemed puzzled, intense.

Roderick ran a hand over the thing’s flank. He said, “Where did this come from?”

The young man bobbed his head, twisted his hat. His friends had crowded in though the door and they jostled each other to see.

“Please, we found it. It was alive – quite friendly really.” He looked upset. “We tried to feed it and it just died. My family’re farmers, we’re tithed to Vanksraat and our manor’s good to us, we’re only here for the fiveday trade-market. No one knew what it... we tried... and it just toppled over.”

“All right, all right, easy.” Roderick shot a glance at Karine and she reached for a pottery goblet. “Have a seat and let me... dear Gods.”

The smell was enough; it brought Kale right out of the doorway and drove Sera into the sun. The Bard, though, didn’t move a muscle. He stared as though his boots had been nailgunned to the floor.

Ecko craned.

The thing was rotting.

Right there on the table – as the light touched it, it was superheating and dissolving into mulch. Its skin peeled back to muscle and sinew, black creatures invaded its flesh and ate it from the inside out. Organs swelled and burst and stank and dissolved, bones cracked and twisted. There was the faint smell of burning wood, a thin wisp of smoke.

The scream was Silfe, the outrage Karine, but Ecko was transfixed, his oculars working, working. The heat was localised – some kinda spontaneous beastie combustion. Okay so it wasn’t a skeletal lich dog, but hey, it was still pretty fucking cool.

The young man shook. His friends patted him as he turned away.

But Roderick watched as the thing dissolved to ash and memory, as the invading creatures starved, perished in their turn, and were gone. There was a char mark on the table.

The Bard said, his voice like stone, “Get me a brush.”

His expression was bleak.

As the young man was hustled outside and given a mug of green stuff, Ecko rather thought that shit had just gotten serious.

* * *

Ecko said, “So? What the hell was that?”

The front doors of the tavern were closed. Sera was outside, talking to the boy; Karine and Silfe had vanished with stocklists. With Roderick now was Kale, his worn face troubled.

“It was a nartuk,” Roderick said. “An alchemical cross – they’ve been extinct for hundred of returns. It’s also not the first... oddity... that’s been seen.” His fingers were tapping tattoos on the table. He glanced up at Ecko. “We’re unique here, we amass rumour from all places, much as we amass trade-goods. We’re a node, and our catch-net is very wide.”

“So? What’s one dead critter?”

“So, we were talking about myth, and rumour. I hear things from all over the world, and I piece them together. This isn’t just one creature.”

Kale said, “It didn’t smell right. Even when he brought it in. It smelled –” he searched for a word and came up with “– wrong.”

Ecko snorted. “That’s some nose you got there.”

“I don’t understand.” The Bard stood up, fingers now rattling against his thigh. He was restless, pacing. “This is the first time our rumours have been realised. And nartuk... that lore is lost. We’ve not practised such alchemy since the high days of Tusien. This – all of this – both defeats and intruiges me.”

There was a flare in the Bard’s amethyst eyes, a flame of something less than sanity – or something more. Hell, this place was getting more like a home-from-home asylum with each day, for chrissakes. Ecko watched, barely suppressing a grin.

Maybe I’m not the only one who needs a shrink...

Roderick took a breath. “Our world is afraid. In her thoughts, she fears something she can neither name nor remember. I’ve spent my whole life, everything I have, seeking to understand that fear. It’s why I have The Wanderer.” He picked up the small terhnwood blade that he’d shown Ecko earlier and gestured with it as he spoke. “I’m Roderick of Avesyr, Guardian of the Ryll, once hailed as the hope of my people. All my life, I’ve searched for lore and insight, and still, I don’t understand.”

“So? Enough with the OCD shit. The guy’s outside, let’s interrogate the crap outta him. He tells us where he got it – we’re good. Let’s go.”

Roderick said, “The Ryll is a waterfall, far to the north of here, where the thoughts of the world are manifest – and where her nightmare was shown to me. And you’re not going anywhere until I understand how this fits. ”

“How ’bout we just get off our asses –”

“I’m not jesting,” Roderick said. He pointed with the blade, his expression cold. “The world knows fear . And this, this is a tiny fragment of that larger picture. There have been sightings and rumours all through the central Varchinde. It’s not just one nartuk, it’s more than that. It’s the beginning of something huge. ”

“Says who? It’s one fucking critter!”

“Did you not listen? I am – was – a Guardian of the Ryll. I watched the thoughts of the world in the water. And I saw –”

“Yeah, a nightmare, I got it already.” Ecko grinned. “How many mushrooms were you doing?”

The Bard went white. He said, slowly and very carefully, “It’s not just one creature, Ecko. It’s the beginning . The world has a fear that she had forgotten – and we must assemble the pieces.”

“Chrissakes.” Ecko came up to a half crouch, facing the Bard across the table. His targeters crossed Roderick’s forehead, the weapon in his hand. “It looks pretty fucking simple to me: wherever that thing came from, that’s where we go. We follow the trail, we do the Grand Quest, I get my hands on the God of Evil, he’s shish kebab, I go home.” He grinned. “This should be as easy as... hey, let’s say ‘a booze up in a brewery’.”

“By the Gods, Ecko! Where do you think I got my scar? You talk so glibly of a ‘God of Evil’ – legend tells that there indeed was once a creature who may fit that description. I went looking for him – and I found nothing. ” The Bard’s passion was powerful, but Ecko didn’t care. “There is so much more we must know. The soil of the Varchinde does show remnants of some ancient war – but I know not how the pieces fit together!”