Danie Ware - Ecko Rising

The Sical’s plaintive, coaxing hunger was hot on his face. He ignored it.

He knew what’d made that explosion. What he didn’t know was how Larred Jade’s idiot patrols had gotten here so fast – or had been smart enough to identify the contents of his stash.

What the hell else had they picked up?

He glanced at Amethea. She watched him, dull eyed and lank haired. She was sunk within herself, too afraid to flee, too meek to strike back – the Sical terrified her. The savagery of the passion that had first stirred the site had bled from her like hope.

He was – almost – sorry. She’d been key and lock and conduit, both heart and catalyst.

But, like Vice, her usefulness was done.

Under his boots lay a huge stone slab, circular, the broken stalagmite at its centre. It was carved in a spiral with a language long-lost – elemental images, pictograms, tiny lines twisting steadily inwards. Once, it had split into quadrants, sarcophagi – now, each one was fused into place by the long Count of Time.

When he called her name, she obeyed without question, eyes on the fire.

One last time.

* * *

Axes struck soil, scraped on hard, broken-edged rock.

Hands shovelled roughly, dirt packing under nails.

Redlock was digging, spitting dirt and shaking it out of his hair.

Triqueta, further back, watched the tunnel – the broken pile of rubble, the roof. Sweat ran down her temple and trickled round the edges of the opal in her cheek. Her jaw jumped with tension.

Tarvi picked up rocks, threw them aside as the axeman broke through the wall.

The draught grew colder. Blind, squiggling things quested eyeless in the sudden air, the wash of it was almost fresh.

There were chinks of light coming through the soil, angled beams like tiny searchlights spread as the wall came down.

Ecko, unable to rid himself of the conviction that the beasties would reassemble and rumble upright, looking for revenge, paced the edge of the rockfall, nimbly jumping the stones that Tarvi threw at his feet.

She winked at him and his belly tightened. He thought about something else.

So – you still watching, Eliza? Extra points for creativity? For the shortcut?

“I’m through,” Redlock said. He hooked another chunk of soil and ripped it down, roots hung pointless and pale. One more, and the hole was large enough for Ecko to get his shoulders through.

And large enough to flood the rockfall with light.

Yellow light, like nicotine, nacreous and familiar.

Tarvi said, “That looks –”

“No shit.” Ecko didn’t need to be told what it was. “I guess we’ve arrived. You lot stay the fuck put, willya? I’m gonna find the elevator.”

“The what?” Redlock was ruefully examining the axe-edge, reaching in a pouch for a whetstone.

“In the words of the prophet – we’re goin’ down.” Ecko’s skin writhed with the colour of the light. “The big bad guy’s always in the last place you look. So fuck that – we are so starting at the bottom.”

Without waiting for their confusion, he pushed through the soil, chill and soft, damp against his skin. He spat it from between his lips, felt the roots tail softly over his face.

He heard Tarvi whisper, “Careful!” felt her hand almost touch him as he scrabbled to make the hole larger.

He knew what the light was – had an idea of what he’d...

Holy fucking mother of god.

His anti-daz flick-flashed.

Halfway in the wall like he was Malice through the Looking Glass, he stopped to stare.

Behind him, the others were forgotten. Maugrim, his stone beasties and his pomegranate grenades, his bike and his washers, forgotten. The Wanderer, forgotten. Eliza, Lugan, the Bike Lodge, the Virtual Rorschach, forgotten.

The light made his skin blanch to jaundice. He blinked his black eyes and he didn’t care.

Pushing himself fully through the hole, he righted himself to stand, breathless, upon the edge of a void. A wide and plummeting shaft, a bottomless drop his telescopics could not penetrate: the very brink of nothing. In the walls, spasms of light flickered downwards, sparking electricity like faulty cables they deepened in hue as they were lost in the darkness.

It was a movie set, a tableau for an epic fight scene – impossible.

Before him, a wide balcony, ancient stone grown with pale creeper that snapped, dry, under his touch. The balcony ringed the wall – it threw jerky and random shadows. It didn’t quite surprise him that three other entranceways were blocked with old rockfall and the open-mouthed, light-seeking lichens.

The light shaft was carved into an almighty and continuous mural – prehistoric figures dancing or fucking in celebration or anguish, caressed by the current that ran through them. The creeper covered them, crawling with a dead lover’s hands – they danced away, the light making them restlessly carouse until they were lost, down, down in the dark.

What’s this now? The road to hell?

Compelled, he picked up a loose pebble.

Bring it on.

But before he let it go, he looked up.

And over him was the underside of the Monument.

A flat, stone ceiling, cracked as though under great impact. Upon it was engraved some sort of spiral, gradually winding outwards – but it was roughly, randomly penetrated by the undersides of the stones.

Thrust through the ceiling, splitting it in places to the edge, they were jags of rock, juts of stone, edges and corners.

And they shone.

And the light spiralled out to the walls.

And bled through the figures and down.

For chrissakes , Ecko thought, this place is way too fucking creepy.

Leaning on the balcony’s edge, holding the pebble out over the massive drop – oh you so know I have to! – it occurred to him to wonder what the fucking hell was keeping that ceiling intact.

He let the pebble go.

And watched it, tracking it with his telescopics until he could see it only in the flashes of the wall light... until the darkness swallowed it whole.

Waited there for a moment, listening for the monsters, the drums in the deep.

When they didn’t stir, he contemplated the rough stone stairway that turned about the shaft’s wall, spiralling down into the very belly of the Powerflux.

So. Let’s go wake ’em up.

* * *

When he kissed her, she tasted ashes.

The brazier was fierce at her back, his hands and lips were hot, but she was closed to him. The rock of her resentment was still in her heart. She wished she could hear the stone.

She remembered Feren: she remembered their ride, the Monument, the creature. She remembered the sunset, the rising shadow of the Kartiah. She remembered Vilsara, a world away, still safe behind Xenotian church walls. Had she ever wondered what had become of them?

Like Maugrim’s touch, the stone blade in her belly was hot, it burned her soul. She gasped, a tiny sound of shock – he was kissing her still, letting her fold in his arms and lowering her to the stone spiral beneath his odd, black boots.

“Sorry sweetheart,” he said, his voice deep and soft in her ear. His fingers stroked her jaw. “Seems time’s caught us up.”

Thick fluid welled over hands she couldn’t remember moving – she looked down at them, uncomprehending. Her own blood between her fingers, soaking her garments, seeping slowly, slowly, into the runnels of the carved-stone floor.

And inwards.

Vaguely, she thought there should be pain. Belly wounded, she should be screaming, but she only looked at him, confused.

She heard herself say, “Why?” and already knew the answer.

He said, “This world is rotting, dying from the inside. Complacent, lazy, self-absorbed – when I came here, he showed me how to fix it. How to burn it all down so it can begin again! He showed me truth – took me and taught me because I understood. And so did you, little lady, my priestess, my healer – at first, so did you.” He smiled down at her. “It was good, wasn’t it?”