Ecko Endgame (39 page)

Startled, the focus of the Kas faltered, just for the tiniest moment…

And in that moment, that space suddenly bought, Rhan could see it. There, eastwards across the darkening sea, sunken beneath the waves, never to be found again…

Somewhere, he heard Vahl breathe smoke. “
No…!
”

But Ecko’s sheer wit had given him the opening he needed. And they were too late.

He stretched out his hand, across Flux and sea and sky, across land and winter. He could see it now, the single, vast rocklight that was the eastern point of the Powerflux. He could hold it and bring it to the surface. He could touch it, make a new sun with it, change the Powerflux for the rest of the Count of Time.

The OrSil, the lost Soul of Light.

His.

From the top of Tusien’s corner tower, the Bard saw everything. He saw Ecko dart forwards, a slight, swift shadow. He saw the two missiles describe perfect arcs into the flame of the Sical. He saw the elemental rock backwards as they detonated. And he saw Rhan’s resulting surge of power, his perfect attunement to the surfacing of the Soul of Light.

More than that: he
felt
it.

It was a blaze of pure and livid outrage. It surpassed all prior limits, all knowledge. It seared across the hillside, dazzling the fighting warriors to stumbling blindness. Nothing stood in its path – not the defenders of Tusien, not the deranged and slavering army that faced them, not even the Kas.

It took the Sical clean in the chest, igniting it with a white fire that burned brighter than its own, and consumed it completely. The elemental gave a huge cry, a flattening roar of noise that scaled upwards into a shriek.

Burn I!

And the horizon detonated into a thousand fiery shards.

Blinded, his ears ringing, the Bard found himself on his knees. He was laughing, deranged and disbelieving. He dragged his hands down his face, struggling to breathe.

I can see! I can…!

In the whack of light he had seen something – a flash, an insight – some aspect of his vision from the Ryll. It had been brief, explosive, but so strong he could touch it: a snatched sight of the Powerflux, of
how
the elements flowed across the world—

In a surge of furious exasperation, he slammed a fist into the stonework, splitting his knuckles, scattering scarlet. He was so
close
! He wanted to cry out, tear at the sky with frustration and power, demand the world give up its secrets, held away from him so long.

But he flexed his hand and grimaced, looked out over the wall.

Below him, the hillside was a crater, scorched and smoking soil, superheated stone. Burned bodies lay twisted, human and monster and animal, all of them seared black. The detonation had blistered everything, and burned the ground to char.

Ash drifted like snow.

Below, people were picking themselves up. Running, shouting, scattered and scared. And right down at the very bottom of the hill, the tents of the Kas still contained pockets of sporadic fighting.

Did we win?

The thought was unreal, it made him fall onto his backside. He leaned against the stone behind him, held up his split knuckles.

He started laughing, stopped himself.

But winning was fallacy: the war was not, had never been, what the world feared. He had known that from the beginning. Whatever field they may have taken today—

There was ink in his skin.

What?

In a sudden trembling panic, he turned his arms, peering at them. His first thought – that the Kas had somehow invaded his soul – he shoved aside, almost by instinct alone. These were not the marks from Amal’s flesh, these were faint, faded, blurred by water and time. Grappling for understanding, he unzipped his London leather and pulled apart the front of his hoodie and shirt.

The words flowed across him like serpents.

Time
, one said.
Flux.

Caught, he forgot to breathe, searched further as if checking himself for lice.
No time, no time
. In other places, he could see the symbols of the elements, running one into another, and an image of a face with pitch-black eyes.

His heart lurched, thumping in his chest and temples. He knew these words – he
knew
them! It was like a drop-key fitting home, a dream suddenly realised.

He could
remember…

Uncaring of the cold, he shed his garments and bared his chillfleshed skin. He was shivering, but he didn’t care. He teetered upon the edge of a moment he had sought his whole Gods-damned
life…

Roderick had been barely thirty returns when they’d welcomed him to the Ryll – little more than a youth in Tundran terms. Young as he’d been, they’d lauded him, afforded him every accolade, and he’d lost his head to it. Their attention had made him giddy. When they’d explained their rules to him, he hadn’t cared – they were aging greyhairs and he was the hope of his generation, first Guardian born in Avesyr, and so on… he’d heard it so many times. He’d thought himself better than their observation and patience. And one night, he’d held out a hand to the water.

Touched his fingers to the falling and forbidden cold.

Now, the memory of that sensation was extraordinarily clear: the vastness of it, utterly drowning him. He remembered the shocking, tumbling onslaught of images, too fast, too big, too many – the thoughts of the world were not meant for mortal minds. He’d tried to catch a flicker like he’d catch the fall’s rainbow spray, but it had all just swamped him, pummelling him down into the darkness.

Leaving him unconscious at the water’s edge.

In the morning, the Guardians had found him. Their fury had been stern and silent; they’d shut him in his room without food or answers. His right arm had been numb to the shoulder, the skin of his fingers burned like he’d shoved them in a fire.

A halfcycle later, they’d exiled him from his home.

But what he’d
seen…
!

He’d seen the world’s nightmare, her nameless fear that had governed his every waking thought from that point onwards.

But he’d seen something else, something that was a part of that fear.

Time.

Time the Flux.

Time the Flux begins to crack.

He’d seen the
Powerflux –
almighty webwork, warp and weft through world and sky; seen it as it touched and governed all things. He’d seen Rhan, the loss of the OrSil, and Ecko, the darkness of his eyes and soul. And Amethea…

Shivering with cold and need and tension and wonder, he struggled to piece it together. He was tight with urgency, with a clamouring disbelief. In the back of his mind, he could hear a voice –
This is not about ‘good’ and ‘evil’, about Rhan and Vahl, and their endless war. This is about the end of all life, all existence, all passion…
and he could see a figure, the exact same writing in his aged and shrivelled skin.

Ress.

Roderick remembered him from The Wanderer, from the night Triqueta had found the injured Feren. He remembered the man as practical, dismissing the Bard’s talk of monsters, his forgotten visions.

In The Wanderer, Roderick had pleaded with him:
Ecko is
here.
He brings darkness and fire and strength the likes of which I have never seen! He understands my tale, my vision, the world’s lost memory—

And then, with a sudden shock of realisation that nearly made him shout, he made the connection.

The Bard was mortal – he could not encompass the thoughts of the Goddess. In his small and limited way, he’d been struggling to see and remember the parts because the full picture was too big.

But Ress’s mind had been blown wide by information. The words he’d seen – they’d changed him, made him crazed. And they’d given him the same damned vision, or something that overlapped it.

The Bard was on his feet, now, elated, excited, afraid. He paced; the wind was ice-cold on his bare skin, but he refused to don his clothes.

He could
see
!

He could see Ress standing on the edge of an oxbow pool of water, stagnant and overgrown. In its centre, there was an old stone statue.

And he knew what it was, just as if the world had shown him.

The water, the stagnant water, was the World’s lost Memory.

Ress had found the
Ilfe.

And he was giving it to the Bard.

So he could remember.

Roderick was still, stunned. Breathless. Prickling with adrenaline. With vision and insight.

The Ilfe – hidden deep under Rammouthe Island, concealed from mortal and immortal alike. No one had been able to get close, because the Kas had been down there, hidden and broken and waiting—

His mind jumping, Roderick understood the ink in their skin. All unknowing, the Kas had been waiting at its side, and it had marked them. Like it had marked Ress, and was now marking him.

Deep below the city of London, Roderick had asked Mom for understanding, for information and comprehension. Now, every horror he’d lived through was worth it – his mind had the speed, and the capacity, and the memory, to finally encompass the thoughts of the Goddess herself.

It would take him time to unravel the imagery completely, but he saw one thing clearly – something the world had forgotten, long, long ago.

The full truth about the Powerflux.

* * *

The sun had gone, spilling its last bloody light across the plain. On the hilltop, Tusien’s walls stood cold and black in the moonlight, while among the scattered destruction of the enemy camp, the rising dark hid lingering horrors.

In the chaos that had followed the lightning strike and the fall of the Sical, Triqueta had commanded her combined forces on clean-up detail. Her cavalry had ridden to the base of the hill, scattered what remained of the army of the Kas, offered the survivors the chance for surrender.

But what they’d found had been wreckage – the remnants of warriors, now aged and crazed, eyes and minds burned out with the Sical’s glory and demise. Many of them could no longer speak, they’d slain their animals and turned on each other. Belly unsettled, Triqueta had rounded the last of them up and placed them under watch while she secured the campsite itself.

Now, the site was quiet, and the moons were rising. She crept silently through the remains of the Kas encampment on foot, her blades drawn. Her back ran with sweat in spite of the cold; she was prowling wary, watching for movement.

Behind her, darkness had swallowed the dead and the dying. Her hands itched like fire, but she ignored them. She tripped, nearly fell. Through the moonlight came spasms of noise – calls to the Gods, cries elated and victorious; gasps of pain and slavers of hunger. In places, there were hummocks on the dead ground and some of them moved, reaching out hands for help.

In a fragment of rocklight, she saw Taure, half his face missing and a last look of shock in his one remaining eye. She dropped to one knee beside him, staring at him as if he were the embodiment of the final death of the Banned.

My old friend.

A memory – she was in The Wanderer, playing dice. Ress and Taure had been propping up the bar, chuckling at her skills. For just a moment, it was more real than…

But then it was gone, and Ress was gone, and The Wanderer was gone, and Taure was there in the cold muck with half his face torn off. She picked up a handful of dirt and threw it over him in a silent farewell.

To him – to her youth – to the Banned entire.

Then, taking a breath, she stood and walked on.

Around her, the shapes became more creature than human. A hand clawed at her leg and she kicked something hard in the face – had no idea what it even was.

She left sick. Her heart thundered.

As she moved onwards, she realised she was coming to the heart of Ythalla’s camp – she could see the ruined remains of bivouacs and tents, store carts left to rot. Many of them had been damaged by the explosion of the alchemy stores, and in places, there were huddles of frightened people, all of them in their last returns, frail and aged and dying. Some of them raged at her, shaking querulous fists, most were too weak.

The Kas had drained their own army, everything they had, to fuel the rise of the Sical.

She shuddered – pity and horror.

And then Triqueta saw something that made her stop.

* * *

The command tent was lit by rocklights, each glimmering in a standing terhnwood sconce. They bathed pools of warmth on the ceiling, threw angled shadows on the frosted walls. In their light, the tent was bare of luxuries – purely functional – and the guards had been ordered to stand outside.

Now, the occupants of the tent were gathered in a curiosity that felt like judgement – Nivrotar, Rhan, and Ecko. Amethea was there, but huddled and staring, curled shivering beside the Lord of Amos. Roderick was alive with his new knowledge; he thrummed to a song that only he could hear, and needed – craved – its release.

“I have waited… for so long,” he told them. He had replaced his garments, wrapping them around himself. The Bard’s gaze went from face to face, stopped as he caught Rhan’s eyes.

“The Kas have left Rammouthe, we know this,” he continued. He looked at all of them and then opened the layers of garments so they could see his lean frame, the writing that was inking itself into him, even as he spoke. Ecko swore. The Bard stood still for a moment, his steel throat bared and flanked by Mom’s scars like its acolytes. “And in leaving, they have left their citadel open. Left the passage through it finally free.”

“And you found…?” Rhan asked him.

“Knowledge!” The Bard grinned, the expression pure mischief, an echo of his former self. “All through our history and mythology, there have been four compass directions. Four elements, four souls. This has been the cornerstone of our entire lore, of everything we know and understand.”

Ecko was bouncing on his toes. “Jeez, keep us in suspenders, willya?”

Roderick said, “There are not four elements.” Wind breathed cold through the entranceway, making him shiver. “There are six.”