Danie Ware - Ecko Rising

The faster her blood flowed, it seemed, the faster the stone receded – after a few more moments, she found she could stand up, legs shaky but capable.

The needle sting reached her heels. It itched.

She leaned forwards, hands against the rock, tried to lift one foot, then the other. Come on, come on!

They still wouldn’t budge.

Her finger brushed a mark, carved in the stone.

A smile etched on the metal plate that covered his mouth .

No. She told herself. Stop it.

She’d noticed the marking before, but the shimmer of Maugrim’s flame had blurred her vision and she’d not seen anything clearly. Now, as the itch strayed over the soles of her feet and agonisingly into her toes, she crouched and leaned to reach the rocklight.

Held it up to the wall.

Light glittering from a carapace of scales.

The mark was old, shallow and faded – a spiral curve, elegant and ancient. It spoke wordless of the vast age and might that dwelled within these stones, these passageways. She traced the spiral with a fingertip, wondering what it meant – who had put it there.

What had she said to Feren? Maybe it once was some celebration, some ancient elemental temple; maybe the stones just observed the Count of Time. Maybe it was a memorial, or a tomb. I heard once that the hill we’re standing on is a passage grave, commemorating some lord or hero...

The realisation was so obvious: she was under the Monument. She was stood within forgotten stones, on the outermost edge of a site so ancient it was lost to lore, abandoned for thousands of returns.

Oh Goddess.

Two sharp, bright points of fear – one for herself, caught down here with no idea as to what really lay outside this dim, dry chamber. The other for Maugrim, for the might he’d touched...

...and for what he’d do with it.

Skin peeling, strip by strip, layer by layer. Metal in muscle, shuddering, jerking nerves.

Not again!

Leaning her weight on her wrists, she found she could lift her heels. One side then the other, she could reach down to scratch and scratch and scratch them. She could almost feel flakes of stone coming away under her fingers. She could flex her toes, just. Mastering the urge to just rip the ball of her foot clean away from the floor, she threw the rocklight to the pallet and scrabbled for the rest of her kit. Belt, knife, pouches, neck-thongs – as soon as she could move, she was trousers and boots on and out of this chamber.

And then what?

She traced the spiral again. The fading of the stone through her flesh had left only memories of its touch in her soul. Its vast awareness had gone from her heart – but she was herself, at last, she was Amethea. The spiral was comforting, as though the stone had not forgotten her.

She was no warrior, no scout, she had been raised by the church, parentless – but never purposeless. As her feet came at last away from the rock and she stamped on them, hard, fighting the pain of returning feeling, she remembered her determination.

He had looked down at her, and he had laughed.

Triumph and realisation.

Whatever he wanted to do with his flesh-and-metal minions, she had no doubt that flesh and stone would be his next step – that, somehow, he would seek to tap consciously into the awareness they’d awakened.

Into the sheer Gods-power of whatever lay beneath.

She threw her legs into her trousers, her feet into her boots, laced them both shut. There was a twinge of loss as her feet finally lost their skin contact.

Settling her belt at her hips, she faced the chamber door.

She’d only ever travelled one way – but had seen enough to realise the size of the maze that lay down here, forgotten by all but Maugrim himself. There was no way out through the treasure chamber – and besides, she found she wanted to stay with the stone.

Alone, her feet stinging raw with the return of circulation to bloodless muscles, she drew a long breath and rolled back the door.

He was smiling at her, a smile of victory.

“Going somewhere, sweetheart?”

* * *

The Kartian metalworker called Vice knew his usefulness was over – and the price he would pay.

He was an artisan, born to craft, raised in almost darkness and tuned to heights of hearing and tactile sensitivity no Grasslander could emulate. In Maugrim’s voice, he’d heard clearly the nuances of hope, exhilaration, domination and death; in the warm, shifting air of the passageways, his scarred Kartian skin responded to the faintest breath of draught, to the raised awareness of what lay deeper.

Maugrim had cauterised the stone, he’d burned away the light-lichens, the stray grass roots, the loose soil and the errant, blindly curious creatures. The rock was warmed by his elemental alignment, but he’d still not yet touched the site’s true nexus.

The stone had awoken, Vice had heard its pulse thrum in his skin, in the bones behind his ears. It lay quiescent now – but its potential left him breathless.

Further in. Somewhere.

Maugrim’s chamber of wealth and death didn’t interest him – it was a dead end in more ways than one. He took a little of the white-metal – not enough to be missed – and he slipped silently away.

This site had no fears for one raised under the dark might of the Kartiah Mountains.

Following the soft touch of air, his fingers tracing the stones in the walls, he began to understand that Maugrim had only cleansed a part of the passageways – that so much more lay untouched. Slowly, the stones about him grew cooler and the roots of the grass began to penetrate the rock, touching his face with creeping pale fingers. Fallen soil caught his feet; the air smelled chill and dry. In places, the walls were graven with sigils his fingers traced with curious incomprehension.

It grew moist and cold, the cold of soil and stone.

He closed towards the centre – the heart of the site that lay directly beneath the broken sarsens of the Monument itself.

Here, the passageways were crumbling, tumbles of rocks littered the floor, dirt fell with a hiss as he passed, dusting his intricate white hair. There was emptiness here, loss and ancient abandonment – now awakened and seeking understanding. No mortal foot had passed this way in perhaps thousands of returns.

The rockfalls grew deeper and older until they barred his way utterly – he couldn’t reach the centre.

Whatever they defended, he needed to find.

He was Kartian, he could navigate with a breath and a touch. In the darkness of the passageways he tried again to reach the site’s heart – and again – but each time, rockfalls or tumbled ceilings barred his way. Growths of dried lichen teased his fingertips and the roots of the grass hung almost to the floor, curtains of pale entrapment.

Then the air behind him moved.

And the rock came savagely to life.

10: FEREN

THE WANDERER, ROVIARATH

The crash of wood made Roderick jump.

The tavern’s doors had been kicked open, slammed back against the benches. Between them stood a silhouette, small and strong, haloed by the moons’ glitter. The rocklight glinted on four pale eyes.

In its arms dangled a corpse.

“Gods!” Heart in his throat, he was moving before he realised it, skid-vaulting the bar and hitting the floor running. The last gaggle of drinkers fumbled for peace-bonded weapons.

The thing in doorway staggered, cried, “Ress!” and the four-eyed shape stumbled forwards into the light.

Triqueta.

She was wide-eyed and shaking, sweat and desperation slid clean trails through the dust on her skin. The stones in her cheekbones gleamed – and in her arms hung the body of a boy.