Danie Ware - Ecko Rising

She could see the brazier’s light behind him and the bright eyes of the Sical, watching her, wanting...

He stroked her hair away from her face.

“I’m sorry – genuinely sorry, Amethea.” On some level, he seemed to mean it. “I’d’ve taken you all the way with me. But betrayal, cowardice – they’re low. You’ve hurt me – and I have to fight now. Roviarath is mine – and from there, we will grow...”

Over her, the almighty twists of the stalactite pillar flickered with the Sical’s hunger. She could hear it, a voice like fire crystal, eager and coquettish and charming.

Feed, I!

She struggled to one elbow, blood pulsing from her belly. The blade was still in her flesh and the blood was slow – so slow. A part of her wanted to wrap one hand round the handle, yank it free, spend her last breath ramming it through his bearded throat, but he still compelled her, even after everything.

Instead she said, “Who’s ‘he’?”

He leaned forwards, pressed lips of fire to her forehead. She felt like she’d been branded.

“Who else?” he told her softly. “Kas Vahl Zaxaar, cast down by Samiel just like his brother Rhan. He sleeps – mostly – but there are those who understand his soul.”

“Like you?”

“Vahl brings passion. There is no place in his world for the mundane.”

In the darkness of the shattered naves, the eyes of the stone army started to glow.

24: FIGMENT

THE MONUMENT

She was small, feminine curves carried confidently by tight, agile fitness. She had dark eyes, a turned-up nose, sunburn and a tension about her that spoke of great fear – and great bravery. She was smart, knew tales even the Bard hadn’t told him. She had watched her patrol destroyed around her, had cried for them and lain in his arms, gasping and wanting, needing to remember to live. He couldn’t begin to imagine what she’d –

For chrissakes will you stop that?

Ecko ripped down her image, screwed it the fuck up and threw it as far from him as he could, resignedly aware that it would bounce down the stairs and sit there, gleaming in the low throb of the light, until he picked it up again.

Beside him on the wall was the worn relief of a full-figured woman, dancing with Vegas abandon in the darkness. The light pulse flickered through her stone skin.

They were deep, down here, the air was damp and slimy stuff was growing in the walls. The light was as purple as bruising, now almost black. He didn’t need his UV to see the phosphor glow of the lichens, of fingernails and eye sockets. He remained invisible – but with the stilled, chilled gyrations round him, he felt like he was nightmare enclosed, heading down and down into some forgotten well-hole.

Yet Tarvi was there, her eyes afire, her hands on her breasts like the woman in the –

Stop it!

He looked back, upwards at the others, clambering weary legged and precarious down the worn, winding rock staircase, yawning drop to one side, hands trailing over the damp. In the almost-dark, the light glimmered over their skin, glittered from the gemstones in Triqueta’s cheeks. He had no idea how far down they were going. His telescopics were trashed: he couldn’t see shit under his own feet.

Above him, Tarvi and Redlock were sharing a joke. She was laughing prettily, her teeth shone with sudden blue-white, a flash in the mist of shadow. Triqueta shoved the axeman with a boot to shut him up.

The sight of them sent a lightning shock through him. Ecko couldn’t help it – his adrenals fired, his targeters reacted. He would have burned her to death. More new feelings – he was a fucking jealous kid, resentful and sullen like some overgrown street teen. He wanted to hate the axeman; he wanted to find reasons why, rationalise his emotional reaction...

For fuck’s sake will you get a fucking grip already.

Unthinking, he stood on his cloak hem, overbalanced and rocked for a moment at the stair’s outside, black fall yammering at him. As he regained his balance, his adrenals had triggered – his heart was in his mouth, his pulse rate screaming gunfire in his temples. Then he was slumped against the wall, against the bare, slime-slick breasts of the dancer.

Struggling to breathe like some fucking wheezing asthmatic.

Tarvi was there, a shape in the darkness, a hand on his forearm. Her nails glowed with a flicker of electro-varnish. He could imagine her touch sending heat ripples through the almost-black colours of his skin.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Get the fuck off me.” His rasp was low. He drew back from her, dropped a step. Bruised light crossed her face, her expression was closed. She looked – oh, for chrissakes – she looked hurt.

“Oi,” Redlock said. “If she wants to care for you, let her. Don’t want you slowing us down.”

He had no energy for fury.

“You wanna flying lesson?”

The axeman’s grin became a laugh.

“Might be more of a diving lesson. Triq says –”

“Triq says, we’re near the bottom,” Triqueta said. “Can’t you feel it?”

The air was cooler, almost cold. Their voices had changed: no longer echoing, lost into the distance.

Triqueta held out her hand, turned it over. Ecko’s starlites showed him a plume of fine sand, sparkling as it tumbled slowly past. It made lazy whorls in the air.

“There’s a draught,” Redlock said.

Cursing silently, Ecko flicked options, kicked his UV.

Jesus Harry fucking Christ, you are so pulling my chain...

Mom had never made his oculars to deal with this shit, any of it. Every which way, his enhancements were failing, breaking.

Yeah, Eliza, I know what you’re doing.

They’d found the bottom of the shaft.

Twenty metres or so below him was pure black light, a pool of it, a mirror of it, a still, flat shine of dark illumination.

Jump , it said. Go on...

Ecko was no sparky, but he totally got that the Monument stones were some kind of node – they were pulling energy, storing it. Zapping it down the walls. And feeding it here – this thing was some sort of capacitor.

But then what?

Ecko found that he wanted – needed – to blow his way through, to announce his presence with detonation and destruction. To rip the whole thing wide open and uncover what lay below.

He missed London. Life was so much easier with hardware.

“There’s something else here,” he muttered. “Where’s the draught comin’ from – Maugrim leave the door open?”

“I wonder what’s on the other side?” Tarvi grinned wickedly at him, the deep lights playing upon the curves of her face. He loved the mischief in her expression. He wished he could show her, really show her what he could –

Fucking stop it, you asshole!

“Apparently so,” Redlock said. “Ecko, I know she’s cute, but keep your head in the game.”

Ecko shot him an LED eye-flash, a sneer.

Head in the game. They were going down a dungeon, for chrissakes – the axeman had no fucking idea how funny that really was.

The stairway ended in a stone landing – a drop point the size of a virtual dance-pad. No balcony, no security – a tiny, solid square of safety suspended like a dock over the bottomless battery-stone-of-doom.

It was compelling. At the bottom of the stairs, Ecko crouched on the edge of the platform, shadow within shadow, contemplating the shine...

...and looking for something to throw. Y’know. Just in case.

In the wall was a single entranceway, a massive stone lintel, cracked with age, grown with green stuff, carved with phosphor-glitter eyes. It had an eerie, carnival appearance.