Danie Ware - Ecko Rising

Then something crawled into the edges of Rhan’s awareness – something strange.

With a peculiar shock, Rhan realised that the curious, sweating heat he had felt in the theatre was coming from the Merchant Master himself. In Phylos’s Archipelagan frame there burned eagerness, anticipation. Expectation. A whetted and savage hunger that was as familiar to Rhan as his own white light.

Knowledge crystallised in an instant and, as though his own light had shown him, he understood.

He understood.

And the weight of it drove him to his knees.

How could he have been so stupid? So phenomenally blind? How could he ... ?

“No.” He wasn’t even aware that he’d said it aloud. “You can’t have...”

“Oh but I can.” Phylos smiled at him like an old friend. “Rhan, your indolence has damned you as effectively as the words of Samiel himself. Your bonds hold you in honour – spiritually as well as physically – and in a moment, you will tumble from the top of this wall. When you do, the Varchinde loses her head.” He watched the horizon, still smiling. “Think, Rhan Elensiel, as you’re falling, so House Valiembor is falling with you. And it’s not the only one.” His warmth grew. “Your brother, your estavah – he stirs with might. And his time will come. ”

“Don’t do this. Whatever he offered you –”

“Are those your last words?” Phylos laughed. “There will be no war, Rhan, why should there be? I hold the trade-life of the Varchinde in my hand. The city and the Grasslands belong to me. Why should there be returns of bloodshed, strife and fighting, back and forth, when these things can be so simple? The head –” he ran a finger across his throat “– and the heart.”

Rhan said, “Roviarath. You damned bastard, what did you do ?”

Phylos reached out a hand and snapped a tiny fragment of metal around Rhan’s still-bound forearm. It burned – but Rhan didn’t know what it was.

“Now,” Phylos said, “will you jump – or do I have to push you?”

The metal bracelet itched. The Merchant Master leaned in, tapped it and said, “A little... security. I want to make sure you hit the water, and I want to watch you drown. ”

Rhan shook off Phylos’s touch, walked to the very edge of the wall. Below him, there were carved faces of creatures in the stone, their teeth bared at the sea. To the north, the Swathe River roared from its gorge and the water seethed white and angry.

He turned his back on the drop and faced his accusers.

“My Lady,” his voice was solid, even in the wind. “Upon Samiel’s name, I did not take the life of the Lord Demisarr, nor inflict any harm upon yourself.”

Valicia snapped back at him, “I bear your bruises on my skin .”

“I will return when I can prove my words.” He stepped backwards into the empty air. “Look for me.”

And he fell.

Again.

The last thing he heard was Phylos’s voice, “Now we finish this. Get me the Bard.”

26: CATHEDRAL

THE MONUMENT

An image danced enticing in the brazier’s light...

Roviarath.

The Grasslands’ most populous city, the hub of the Varchinde’s ever-cycling trade. Maugrim had lived on her doorstep, he knew her strength: to the west, the waterways that brought wood and stone from Irahlau and Vanksraat, the exquisite craftsmanship of the Kartiah; to the east, the Great Cemothen River and the trade-route to the docks and spice markets of Amos, the triremes of the Archipelago.

About her fine and decorous stone skirts, the vast defenceless sprawl of the Great Fayre – now evacuated, abandoned and skeletal at the CityWarden’s back.

CityWarden Larred Jade sat mounted, waiting.

About him, his militia. He’d sent the younger ones and the ones with families to warn the farmlands, and block the trade-roads. With him waited his veteran range patrols, nine tan in all, ninety warriors, thirty of them mounted. Upon the wall, another seventy archers.

A ludicrous and pitiful number. And Maugrim knew – not one of them had ever fought anything more dangerous than a road-pirate.

They were the over-stuffed city’s only defence.

And the Monument’s creatures, fire and stone, were blazing through the grass towards them.

Come the dawn, the Fayre would burn like a Fawkes’ Night fire.

And while Jade was dealing with the aftermath, the Sical would raze Roviarath to the ground – all but the walls.

And the heart of the plains would stop beating.

* * *

Triqueta paused on the edge of an impossible garden.

Deep under the Monument’s glow, verdant, swarming and growing almost as she watched it, was a madness of crumbling stone and lushly tangled, fecund life. There were trees – insane that they should grow down here – stooped and aching under the weight of wild, strangling vines, pulling them down until their trunks splintered. There were archways leading from nowhere to nowhere, broken buildings, twisted staircases that ended in only air, their stone cracking under clawing fingers of creeper.

A spreading, thorny knot of wild bramble blanketed everything, entangling and burying it. In places, it flowered in delicate white; in others, it bore fruit that rotted uneaten. Down here, the very seasons were corrupt.

She was shaken to her core, weakened and uncomprehending.

What had Tarvi done?

Her knees hurt, her back, the joints of her fingers. Her face felt strange, tight, the stones in her cheeks somehow loose. The skin on her arms and hands was spotted with age, no longer her own. Her hair felt wrong.

She had no way to see her own reflection. And she was afraid.

Yet they’d staggered, Redlock coughing blood like an old man, down a curve of ancient, clumsily hewn tunnel and found themselves on the edge of...

...this.

This was ornamental lunacy, the Goddess herself driven loco by an overspill of naked, elemental power. Light shone from the walls, veins of crystal and spreading lichen growth, it cast harsh, angled shadows and dazzled them after the darkness of the well.

She didn’t like enclosed spaces. She liked this, this distortion of the natural wild, even less.

Her hand tightened on her bow, gripping it against a sliding sweat of nervousness.

Ecko’s rasp was subdued, “Fuck. Your hydroponics guys went on a bender, huh.”

In front of her, he was as dark as a nightmare, as sharp as a blade. As he moved, the harsh shadows of the crazed canopy slipped over his cloak and the colours in it stirred and shifted as though the leaves blew in an unfelt wind.

Triq missed the breeze, the open sky.

She listened, straining to hear – something, anything. The stillness disturbed her – there were no creatures, no birds or sunlight. She could hear only her own heartbeat, the pounding of her pulse in her ears.

Redlock coughed again, wiped blood from his lip. The claw slice in his cheek was swelling to an angry scarlet.

“I’m guessing we can pick up the char trail pretty quick. Ecko, what d’you see?”

“Green shit,” Ecko told him. “More green shit than an Amsterdam biolab. Hang on...”

Flicking his cowl over his shifting mottle-skin, he tilted his head as though listening. Triq counted one, two, three – and he was gone, dissolved into the chaos. Not a leaf shook, she didn’t hear him leave.

Summoning her courage, she touched a hand to Redlock’s muscled shoulder.

“What happened to me?” The kiss haunted her.

The axeman turned to her, his face troubled.

“My fault,” he said. “I trusted the wrong person – let familiarity govern judgement. Won’t happen again.” He dropped one axe though its belt-ring and ran callused fingers over her cheek. “You may not believe this,” he smiled at her, “but I think it suits you.”