Danie Ware - Ecko Rising

My poor people. The thought was a thread of light in the darkness. What will happen to you?

And they marched him, stumbling in silent darkness through stone corridors, a solemn tramp of feet echoing from the walls.

* * *

The hands brought Rhan to the scene of his final ruin, and they gave him a push.

Blind, he stumbled through twin doors, heavy and cold. A rising roar of sound hit him like a tide. He knew where he was – in many ways, this room was more familiar to him than his own skin.

This was what Tekisarri had given him; this was what the Gods had charged him to care for. His life had been spent in this room.

As other hands took the blindfold from him, though, he almost quailed.

In four hundred returns of his guardianship, he had never seen this many people in the Theatre of Nine.

The implications were sickening, but he could not find the thoughts to articulate them – he was overwhelmed by shouting, by the rising tiers of faces, by the mouths contorted in hate and loathing.

By the expressions of righteous fury.

He found himself lurching forwards. Unable to put his hands out to steady himself, he was almost on his knees.

For the first time in returns without measure, the great, cold theatre had life. It raged with energy, with anger and pride, with the burning-loyal soul of the Lord city. As Rhan’s eyes traced upwards across the people, perhaps looking for an end, looking for a face of hope, a single expression of support – Scythe? Penya? Dear Gods, Roderick? – he could see that there were soldiers, spear bearing and silent, standing in the alcoves in the half circle of the back wall.

Over them, the carved story of Fhaveon’s founding glittered, mocking, and he looked away.

At the table, eight of the Nine were gathered – the pale-faced Selana now in her father’s chair, upright and tiny amid the chaos. Her Council were unchanged, only Rhan’s seat was empty, his own carven likeness, ever plummeting, now seemed in outright scorn.

He took a pace towards it, purely out of reflex. It had been his seat for four hundred returns and he could not...

He had failed.

Failed Samiel, failed Tekisarri, failed the family Valiembor, failed his damned brother.

Will you miss me, Vahl, if I’m not here to fight?

But Vahl Zaxaar, it seemed, did not hear him.

Phylos rose to his feet in a billow of blood-fabric.

“There he is!”

Reaction spread from him like shock. The sea of shouting faces reddened with fervour, mouths wide, eyes flashing. A chant began at the back of the crowd. “Rhan! Rhan! Rhan!” Fists punched the air in unison.

For a moment, the shouts counterpointed the ghost memory of Demisarr’s final shriek, the feel of his wife’s lithe and furious body...

I did not do this!

His unheard cry was desperate with incomprehension.

Valicia herself stood like a wall, her arms folded and her expression stone. She had the courage to meet his gaze and face him down, and he knew that she would cast him from the city’s heights herself, if she could.

Then there were soldiers beside him. Hands on his arms propelled him forwards.

As he came fully into the bottom of the theatre, the crowds’ frenzy redoubled, shrieking and chanting. They were a mob, savage. The missiles started – fruit, spit, stones. There were faces he knew, lovers and friends, and they were jeering hatred.

They believed.

He lifted his chin in challenge and defiance – not to the people, but to his own despair.

I could not have done this!

A fruit pit struck his chest. He flinched. Another struck his shoulder, his ear. He almost lost his footing, but forced himself to stand. Briefly, he remembered the terrible plummet of his Fall through chaos, and wondered if it really could have been any worse than this.

Rack up the tankards, my brother. Perhaps I will be joining you after all.

One figure surged out of the teeming people, his shouting lost in the crowds’ roar, but his intention clear as he tried to hurl himself down onto the theatre’s floor. A jolt like lightning jarred through Rhan’s body as he saw the loathing on the young man’s face. He stopped, transfixed, tried to meet the man’s gaze, defend himself, deny this insane accusation.

He said, “Scythe...!”

But Scythe was caught by a soldier’s hand on his shoulder, efficient and ruthless. A moment later, the soldier had snatched the young man up and carted him away.

The crowd jeered and wailed.

Phylos held up his hands for silence.

Slowly, the tides of movement stilled. A child cried at the back and was hushed by a gentle murmur.

“This is Fhaveon,” Phylos said, “the might of the Varchinde. Built by Saluvarith, ruled by the First Lord Foundersson Tekisarri and by his sons and daughters for four hundred returns. We are the Grasslands’ Lord and guardian, the people of the plains look to us for hope, faith and terhnwood.

“And we cannot let them down.”

The crowd was quiet now, watching the Merchant Master as if transfixed. Rhan could feel that the room was growing oddly warm.

Sweating.

He shifted, oddly uneasy.

What?

“There is a legend, people of Fhaveon,” Phylos told them, “one we have all heard in the markets and bazaars. A tale that this city was built to face a daemon, that Saluvarith brought the white stone of the Archipelago here to the Varchinde and that he constructed a fortress, a great wall upon the water. He built a city of might to ensure that this daemon would never return.

“And the tale goes on. It tells that he was sent a champion, an immortal warrior to stand upon the city’s wall and watch always for her foe.

“We ask ourselves, people of Fhaveon, if this legend is true.”

The people were silent. The tale of Fhaveon’s construction was well known, but few treated it as anything more than a tavern-saga. In this world of trade and terhnwood, the word “daemon” had a ring of the ludicrous.

Phylos was smiling like a benefactor. Rhan was watching him now, unsure where this gambit was going.

The air was growing warmer.

The Merchant Master was still talking. “Fhaveon has stood proud for four hundred returns, unthreatened for lifetime after lifetime. And we have seen no daemon. ” The word was scornful, with a tinge of threat.

Somewhere in Rhan’s heart, a worm of fear was burrowing, beginning to curl. The air was making his breath catch in his throat.

Don’t do this. Whatever you’re going to do, don’t do this...

The people were beginning to mutter, shifting in their seats. The Merchant’s smile spread to a grin full of teeth.

“My people, we stand at the edge of new beginning – of a time when we can finish the work that Adward began, when our very command of the terhnwood cycle can take control of the Varchinde entire. And I say to you – that the daemon is no legend. ”

What? The air was close, humid. Under the brilliance of the white rocklights, people’s skin was beginning to glisten.

Phylos held his hands higher. “Wait! Heed me and I will explain! I say to you that this ‘daemon’ is propaganda! It is a story perpetuated by this –” he indicated Rhan and the susurration of the crowd grew louder “– this man –” the word was spat “– so he can soak up our comforts and our time and our wealth and our work and do nothing. ”

The accusation was close enough to the truth to leave Rhan breathless. Something in him said, No, it wasn’t like that, I’ve always... But it was there, like a fibre-pin jabbing in his skin. If he had been fulfilling his mandate, he would have seen this coming, returns ago.