Ecko Endgame (17 page)

Fucksake, they’d both be roasting over a slow fire while Ythalla shoved things in places not designed for the task. And that was
so
not how this was gonna go down.

Holy sh—

Shut up, asshole!

Ecko stopped himself, annoyed. His heart was thundering, his adrenaline roaring in his ears. He’d cut his hand on a piece of shell and hadn’t realised it; his skin was split and bleeding. Sucking at the wound, he focused his telos here, there – on the centaurs stretching their human and animal limbs, on the things with the human faces like the one that’d accosted him in Aeona, on the controlling vialer, now walking among the bedrolls themselves.

Across the clear night, he could hear them shouting.

As the sleeping population began to stir, Ecko fine-tuned his telos as far as they would go, looked from waking face to waking face, seeing desperation, need, seeing the new blaze of hope…

And seeing one more thing, the thing that curled him with a horror he’d never before experienced. His mouthful of his own blood nearly made him sick.

Not one of the faces was over thirty.

And almost a third of them were children.

* * *

“Once,” Gorinel said, “there was only Kazyen, the void, timeless and dreamless and alone. Into that void there came the first mother – and so it knew life and movement, and so began the Count of Time. The first mother bore Time children – Gods whose names and roles we’ve long lost, forgotten to lore and mythology both.”

Sat on her bucket, Amethea was looking round at the windows, one at a time, a chill shivering her spine. “The days of the halfcycle…”

“A great irony,” Gorinel said. “So much lore lost – names of Gods, the beginning of the Count of Time itself. Yet pieces, we remember – Samiel was one of those children, and he sired twins. The Gods crafted a plaything for them from their own flesh, a toy that shone with light and laughter. In wonder, the children took to the skies of this plaything, circling and admiring – but as they grew older, so their eyes became consumed, not with the toy below, but with each other.”

Amethea said, almost a whisper, “I know this,
know
this – they had such beauty that they had no control; they became lovers in breach of all that Samiel had taught. And Samiel condemned them to fly the skies always – unable to touch, faces turning toward each other and then turning away. But the world…?”

“Is a toy – crafted for the children. Such a little thing.” His smile was gentle. “But remember, like any child’s favourite toy, they have never parted with it, and it holds a place in their hearts still – a place that may yet surprise you. Put your shoulder to the wheel, Amethea, and know that you are not abandoned.”

His tone was gentle, his expression quiet. But there was stone in the old man’s voice, a strength to match his girth. Not quite sure why, she held out a hand to him, asking for a blessing that she had no words to frame.

Faith.

Purpose.

Put your shoulder to the wheel.

When the old man took her hand in both of his, she found that she was shaking, but that she had the strength to look up at him. Something in her heart had shattered and was now settling, and she wasn’t even sure what it had been.

“I’ll try,” she said. “I can only promise that much – I’ll try.”

“And that’s all we can ever ask,” he said, patting her hand and letting her go. “Now. What can I do for you?”

“I came to give you this,” she said. She held out to him a white feather. “And to ask for your help.”

Ecko and Roderick left Ythalla’s camp as if the monsters would uncurl and come after them, as if every generation of Amal’s crafted nightmares would coalesce in the cold winter dawn, slavering for victory. Gathering his cloak hem like some shrieking girlie, Ecko lost dignity and cynicism both, and he just fucking legged it. His feet ran to a silent tattoo, as if they recalled his earlier thoughts:
It could’ve been worse. Jeez, it could’ve been so much fucking worse. If we hadn’t’ve kicked Maugrim’s ass, if we hadn’t’ve fucked up Amal
…

Somehow, though, the plus side had packed its bags and caught the first flight outta there. Whatever his thoughts were trying to tell him, he reckoned the whole city was up a very shitty creek indeed.

Around them, the streets and buildings were all but empty – where were the
adults
, for chrissakes? – and Ecko didn’t bother fucking about with rooftops. Silent as horror, he kept pace with the long legs of the Bard, running through the cold like a shadow.

Running like Ythalla’s entire army were off the leash and after them, torches and pitchforks and all.

Chrissakes.

As they skidded round a corner and began to head upwards, away from the outskirts, it occurred to him to wonder why the force was just sat there with its thumb up its collective asshole. Hell, that lot could rise up and trash the place any time they wanted. What were they
waiting
for?

But he had a nasty feeling he knew the answer to that one already.

Nivrotar had been right.

The Kas. The Kas were coming.

And then all the merry Rhez would break loose.

They ran.

Around them, the buildings were silent, sagging, broken, their black eyes empty, their rocklights dimmed. Street stalls were overturned and picked clean; there were jagged great holes in the walls where
things
had torn out of them. Critters scuttled in moon shadows; scavengers slunk with low shoulders and bared teeth.

Some fucking fantasy utopia this was: garbage and corpses and stink, oh my. Oz hadn’t only fallen, it’d been kicked to shit and pieces. The Yellow Brick Road had been torn up and the bricks were down there, right now, with eyes and claws and fucking
teeth.
How’d it go again?
There’s no place like…

But the word “home” caused an odd pang – it was somehow nebulous, and he veered away from it like a body in the road.

Running beside him, apparently oblivious to their surroundings, the Bard was muttering to himself. The thrum of his throat seemed to make the abandoned buildings shiver – yep, this time, he’d really fucking lost it.

Ecko wanted to rail – this whole thing was batshit. It wasn’t
fair
. Here he was, in a world of fucking wet-eared novices, now facing the inevitable World-Ending War…
Yeah, I asked for it, I know.
They were outnumbered, outmanoeuvred, outmonstered. Outflanked. They didn’t even have metal
weapons
, for fucksake. Score fifty points and a cookie for one superhero who could presumably blast lightning out his asshole and nostrils, but he was only one and the other side had all his
brothers.

And pitched battles? Tic-tacs and strategy? Military shit? These guys knew less about this stuff than he did. What army they had was in pieces. They were so gonna get their asses handed to them on a fucking polished plate.

And then what? If they didn’t win the war, would that mean he’d failed after all? After he’d capitulated and
everything
?

Fucksake. In the rhythm of the Bard’s feet, he could hear Eliza laughing at him, echoes of nightmare.

Whatever! Stack the fucking odds, why don’tcha? I’m gonna kick your smug ass, you bitch. I’m Sir fuckin’ Boss an’ I’m so gonna do this. You wait an’ see!

They ran on, breath pluming. The Bard’s muttering grew louder.

Dude was a certifiable loony.

Over them, the sky was paling now, starless and grey. The air was crisp and bitterly cold. Frost glittered, slicking the roadway underfoot. Despite the dawn of the dead feel to the empty streets, Ecko could hear birdsong.

Wacky.

As long fingers of cold sunlight began to steal across the broken stone, they at last came to a small square. Like many others, the fountain here stood stagnant. The crystal trees had been hacked down and their stumps burned – flakes and ash still blew in the dawn wind. But here Roderick stopped, turned. He’d pulled the scarf from his mouth and throat, and now revealed the snake nest of warmth and steel and carbon fibre that his voice box had become.

“You ready for this?” His voice was velvet and gravel, taint and taunt and temptation. Wondering what the fuck he was about to do, Ecko stayed exactly where he was and let the cloak cover him.

Chuckling at his reaction, the Bard walked out towards the silent fountain, kicking at the last of the fire as he passed. His black Converse brought sparks from the embers.

Ecko got the impression he was grinning. He flicked his scanners warily, and wondered just what kinda dragon he was gonna sing down from the clouds…

You ready for this?

Roderick turned, leaned on the fountain’s edge. He began again the strange rhythmic mutter, a bass thrum that seemed to reverberate from the stone, from the square itself, from the surrounding buildings. His voice was soft and dark, but something about it was undeniable, the touch of the tip of a blade. The steam that came from his breath curled upwards into the morning; Ecko half-expected it to make pictures.

You ready for this?

The Bard lifted his chin. Over him, a line of birds was perched on one of the semi-lethal washing lines; as Ecko glanced up, they rose and whirled and settled again. Their song was clear now, a counterpoint to the Bard’s mutter – it was painfully pure, liquid and crystal.

And then he realised that the song was not coming from the birds.

Oh you’re kiddin’ me…

The Bard’s throat was aglow, of course it was. Warm, warmer. Ecko’s telescopics could see it: the steel cords in his neck were moving, swelling, each cable oiling round its fellows in some sensual and sinister writhe. From his mouth and ears and lungs came a sound of wonder and opal and sunlight, a sound of pure glass and singing steel, a sound that made Ecko stand and gawp like he’d scored front row tickets to a BiFrost gig.

There was no way that sound,
both
those sounds, could come from a human throat.

Mom? What
the hell
did you
do
?

Bass-thrum and glass-shard music swelled slowly in volume. Despite the sound’s sweetness, its painful clarity, something in Ecko shivered – it jagged at his nerves like the old fingernails-down-a-blackboard trick. It was pure power, some ma-hu-sive engine that was just turning over, warming the fuck up. He wondered what the hell would happen if the Bard put his foot to the floor… Then slapped himself round the head and fought to
think
through the onslaught of noise…

What the hell was the fuckwit actually doing?
Summoning
something?

Oh, this
so
wasn’t gonna end well.

His nerves itched. His ears popped. He wanted to put his fingers in them and shut out the song, the bass, the lure, the call, the morning, the whatever the hell it was supposed to be.

Then he saw…

The other side of the square, there was a figure in a doorway – an older man, greying and slightly scared. He was glancing back and forward, then leaning inside to speak to someone Ecko couldn’t see. As the Bard saw him, he raised his volume – only a little – and the pure song curled into the paling dawn, sent tendrils of sound across the openness.

No fucking way.

The man took a pack from a woman behind him, helped her through the half-barricaded door, and slung the pack on his shoulder.

They came across the square to the Bard, picking their way carefully through the debris.

Jesus fuck, you’re the fucking Pie-Eyed Piper now?

Ecko rubbed his shoulders, chilled to the core.

He’d no clue why he hadn’t seen this –
realised
this – before. The man was supposed to be a bard, for chrissakes, a bard with no memory, and Ecko’d heard him play instruments in The Wanderer. The music thing had been inherent all along. So, was this what’d been lurking below the surface of that slightly feckless, starry-eyed idealist? Was
this
what Mom’d brought out of him?

Wasn’t that what Mom did – grant your greatest potential, at the cost of your…?

Oh no you fucking don’t.

Like “home”, “soul” was another nebulous, bullshit word he wanted nothing to do with. He stopped himself, administered another mental slap. It was all crap anyhow, all this sentiment and whimsy – and why the hell was he wasting his time…

For just a moment, there in the char-mark in the square, Ecko saw a ghost – a thin kid, pale-skinned and red-haired, a loner in his room with his imagination and his games. A kid rejected by his parents, picked on by his younger half sisters, a kid whose viciousness and anger were the barriers he’d built to keep people away from him – but a kid who’d craved attention nonetheless.

A kid with a lighter in his hand.

Ecko stopped, his fists clenched as if he could pummel the image physically out of his brain, pound that bit of the program away, stomp it to pieces. What was Eliza doing, looping him now? Haunting him with his past?
Yeah you go for it, you fucking clever bitch.
He might’ve agreed to kick the bad guys’ butts, for chrissakes, but now she was taking the piss with her poor-Ecko-he-was-bullied-as-a-child fucking flashbacks…

What’s this now? Cognitive therapy? Childhood issues?

Get a fucking grip, for chrissakes!

The Bard’s song dropped in note, a minor key change that sent further shivers through the crisp, cold morning. The sunlight was swelling now, and Ecko shook himself, looked back across the square. Behind the greybeard, there were others, shadows lingering. They came forwards slowly, like some shambling zombie horde…

No, not quite. Their movements were cautious, curious – but they were coming because they wanted to. Needed to. Whatever that song was, it wasn’t simply summoning them to a brainless follow – hey, now who’s racking cannon fodder? – it was some sorta
call.

Ecko shook his head, trying to get the sound out of his ears. However pure the Bard’s vocals, he could still hear that bass-thrum undertone, and it just sounded like Mom.