Ecko Endgame (7 page)

“Led you?” He bared his teeth. “What’re you, helpless now? You’re a big girl, you made your own choices—”

“Did I? Did
you
?” She snorted, anger and grief, ridicule. “We should never’ve gone to Aeona, whatever Nivvy just said. The terhnwood blade I was given in the pub, that damned brimstone – that alchemist wound us in like fish so he could have
you.
And you near damned us all, our whole
world.
And Redlock…”

The word choked her. She expected,
wanted
, Ecko to fight back, needed him to rise against her raw torrent of words, but instead he backed up, spreading his hands.

“Look, I didn’t come out here to pick a fight.”

“What?” Startled by his lack of resistance, Triq lost her momentum, staggered. Unsure, she sniped, “Makes a change.”

He pulled a face at her. “Put a fuckin’ sock in it willya, I’m tryin’ here. You wanna go home – like, I get it, y’know? I…”

“Yeah, I know.” It was Triqueta’s turn to back up. She shrugged, not sure where this was going. “I’m not used to you being… well, like that, I s’pose. Sorry.”

“Me too.”

For a moment, they stood there like kids, neither of them quite knowing what to say. Then Ecko lifted his chin and looked straight at her, black-on-black eyes like pits, expressionless.

“I don’t…” He paused, seemed to gather himself, to make a conscious, concentrated effort. “I don’t think you should go… ah… alone.”

I don’t think you should go alone.

It was just about the last thing she’d been expecting. For no reason, Triqueta found her pulse jumping, and she stared at him, his ill-fitting clothes wind-tight against one side of his lean body.

He said, “You came after me.” He seemed to be struggling, and, like staring at some deep fear, she was compelled to see where it would end. “You said, ‘We’re your friends, we came here because we love you, because we won’t abandon you, because we don’t walk out on family.’” Flickers passed though the colours in his skin. “I don’t want… I don’t think you should. Not all that way. Not with all the… y’know… critters an’ stuff…” His argument tailed into an awkward silence, but he held her gaze. He seemed fixed to the spot, tense.

“I don’t need an escort.” She mustered a laugh, before realising that really hadn’t been the point.

He was asking to come with her.

Asking…

Don’t be ridiculous
, Triqueta told herself,
you’re imagining it…

Something in her laugh had cowed him, and he dropped his gaze and stepped back out of the wind, into the shadow of the arch’s wall. He shrugged, backed away further. He seemed embarrassed, flickers of anger chased impossible blue lights in his empty black eyes. Muttering, he went to turn away.

Triq heard herself say, “Ecko, wait!”

“What?” The word was a lash, cutting, a knee-jerk reaction to hurt.

She said the first thing that came into her mouth. “I needed to ask you about something. Back there, when we were going into the wood and the soldiers caught Amethea…” Now, she found the words were falling from her, easing a weight on her heart she hadn’t even known she was carrying. “Would you… would you have let her die?” Her voice caught and she was crying again, unable to help herself. “Let all of us die?”

Would you have killed all of us in order to save yourself?

The question wasn’t about Amethea – it was about the choice he’d made on the alchemist’s table, the choice to damn their entire world in order to save his own skin.

Shame was one fucking ugly emotion.

“I’m gonna help you.” His rasp came from the wall shadow, softer now, almost gentle. “Goddamn motherfucking program. I’m gonna
do
this. You fucking see if I don’t.”

Triq drew a ragged breath, crying, almost laughing. “I believe you, I
believe
you.” She bit her lip against the sobbing and the words were lost.

“Jesus.” It was a confession, a realisation, a breaking. Even as Triqueta turned away from him, hands over her face, she could feel him move behind her, small and slight, taut as terhnwood fibre. As she turned back, she found herself abruptly too close – he was there in front of her, a hair taller than she was. His skin was flecked with the warm yellow of hers, the shine of the opal stones in her cheeks; his eyes were huge, featureless and terrifying. A glitter of black showed between his lips.

Hesitant, his hand touched her face. When she turned into it, almost as an excuse not to have to look at him, he caught his breath…

Stopped.

Her colour seeped into his skin.

She expected him to pull away, to snarl denial, to deliver some blistering retort, to hurl her back by word or gesture; she expected to have to fight. But there was nothing. He simply stood there, his hand on her cheek, breathless, unmoving.

Warm.

And something in her began to tremble. That touch was calling an answer from her belly, a spread of anticipation through her body that made her shake with the strangeness of it.

So many faceless lovers, grapple and sweat, attentions just to fill the holes in her soul. Rough relief or momentary comfort, all forgotten with the birth of the sun. And this…

Somewhere Triqueta heard an echo of Tarvi’s fire-crackle laughter, taunting.

The heat in her flared in response. His face was almost desert-shades now, warm and normal. Only those limitless, bottomless black eyes…

Neither of them moved. They stood there as if the Count of Time waited breathless, was watching them as they watched each other, transfixed, to see what they would do.

He said, his voice a whisper, a question, “Triq…”

But it broke the moment, and the cold sky lurched into motion. She stepped back, swallowed, unsure what had just happened. His arm fell back to his side as if it were lost.

“Sorry,” she said, not even sure why. “But I’m going alone. I don’t…” She’d been going to say, “I don’t want company”, but she realised that was a lie, and instead she trailed into an awkward silence. His closeness, his strangeness, had been so intense they’d made her shiver, made her skin thrill and her heart pound. She wanted…

No, that was just crazed.

She was going alone, and that was all there was to it.

Before she could do anything else, anything foolish, she took another step back. Then she turned and walked out through the archway.

He called after her, and it took an effort not to stop.

It took all the effort she had to turn the corner, and walk out into the cold.

In a small, high window at the aching heart of Fhaveon, there sat an old man in a red robe.

He wore pince-nez glasses, new and slightly too big for him. They slid down his nose constantly, to be retrieved by the reflexive shove of a finger. In his other hand was a pure white quill, tip dark with ink, and on the cold windowsill lay a heavy ledger, pages yellow and crackling. The book was covered in tally markers, bundles of fives and tens and days and distances. In the outermost corner of the open page, the old man was absently crafting a doodle, a humorous little sketch that might have been a stylised warrior.

But he was not really paying attention, either to the sketch or to the tallies. He was watching the grey street below, the scurries of dead winter leaves tumbling one over another, or stuck like fabric to the roadways; the hanging signs of craftsmen and traders now forlorn as the buildings they marked had been abandoned.

Occasionally, he heard voices, distant ripples of sadness and anger.

Merchant Master Mael was safe up here. Phylos’s old rooms were high and clean, reflecting the city’s zenith, and tucked away from the shatter and tumult that Fhaveon’s streets had become. Like his title, the rooms were too big for him, but they had one thing in common with his little tent in the marketplace – they were detached.

Though now, that detachment felt strange.

There had been a moment when Mael had been the pivot and lynchpin of the great city’s crisis, living and breathing it, vital and alive. In that moment, he’d not been an observer, he’d really made a difference – he was an old man and it had almost cost him his life, but he’d
mattered.
Now, some part of him craved that validation – wanted to be out there, understanding, living, feeling what the city was feeling, and helping. Mael was an academic, certainly, but these allocations of cycles and balances and craftmarks… they were cold. And frankly, the Cartel’s sigils and maps and endless equations were making his head hurt.

He glanced back at the little doodle, at the comical, heavyset warrior that grinned up at him from the paper.

You daft old bugger, what have you become!

Mael snorted, and pushed his glasses higher up his nose.

They’d named him a hero, a knight, a member of the Order of the Something or Other – there was a real white-metal medal somewhere with his name on it. He wore the decorous red robe of the Merchant Master – though he feared Phylos had carried the colour rather better – and he had the life-sworn loyalty of…

No, that was one thing he still wasn’t ready to think about. It creeped his damn skin every time he remembered it.

More shouting came from outside, faint with distance; the leaves eddied in the roadway.

Mael looked back at the long page of numbers, blew the moisture from his doodle and closed the page. Try as he might, he could not balance the figures and there was real fear coiling in his heart like some smirking, sliding creature.

You’re not going to do it
, the creature said.

Fhaveon was facing another battle – and there would be no blazing and heroic win to get them out of this one.

No food, no grass, no terhnwood, no trade. The city’s in ruins. We won’t last the winter.

We’re going to starve.

Mael put the book away. They would be coming for him at the birth of the sun, and he had to be ready. Knight of the Whatever-it-was or not, the streets were not a safe place to be alone.

* * *

Since Phylos’s fall, Fhaveon had become almost nocturnal – the pirates had coalesced into factions, they worked from hit-and-run night markets, heavy with muscle, and they warred merciless beneath the broken awareness of both soldiery and Cartel. The lower levels of the city had disintegrated into rages and ruins and raids. With his still-limited strength, Tan Commander Mostak had little hope of re-establishing control. His forces were split – many had sympathised with Ythalla and Phylos, and many more had simply fled.

Selana’s illness worsened, and she lacked both authority and experience. The Council had been disbanded; many of its members fled or vanished. Of those who remained, Rhan was too tainted by Phylos’s pedagogue might, Valicia, Selana’s mother, wouldn’t leave her daughter and Mael, new to his robe, had the mind but not the presence. Mostak had his hands full already, and, lacking leadership, Fhaveon convulsed like a headless serpent.

“Nervous?” Mael’s despatched guard grinned at him. “You don’t need to come for this.”

“I know.” The guard had not offered him his title, but it was too heavy for both of them. Mael shrugged, tripping over the hem of the robe and reaching for his winter cloak. “I want to.”

“Course you do.” The guard winked. “You’ve got a sack on you, that’s for sure. Hope this works.”

They crept noiseless into the soft grey light. The air was sharp and cold and their breath steamed.

About them, the street noise had faded to a tense quiet; echoes of shouts hung in the air like figments. A soft mist stole silent from the empty plain and the rocklights hung spectral and sinister, pale blurs of white.

Mael tightened his fists, nails biting his palms. He peered from doorway to archway to corner, from darkness to darkness. They moved cautiously, sensing unseen eyes sliding over them like wet fingers, voices almost heard, lost somewhere in the mist.

Mael coughed, smothered it, offered, “We’ve made a real mess of this, haven’t we?”

A rustle made him start – a hungry creature, grey fur and sinew, fleeing from the unexpected visitors. Under a pile of crafthall debris, several discoloured, swollen bodies lay stinking. One of them twitched, though Mael suspected it had more to do with scavengers than it did with a struggle for life.

He swallowed.

“The fighting here’s almost constant,” the guard said, voice soft. “Every area has its own petty Lord, and they scrap like greedy children.” He nodded at the rotting pile. “This is the result. Keep your eyes open, Merchant Master.”

Mael shoved his glasses higher up his nose, then he stilled his heart, covered his mouth and moved on.

They turned a corner, another. The city’s striated stonework offered holes, maws of darkness and damage; its carvings were shattered, and piles of rubble loomed peculiar through the mist. The skeletal trees angled like claw shadows, distorted. The guard had drawn his blade and was poised, tight as a bowstring.

Merchant Master.

If this guard chose to kill him, they’d never find what was left.

Then Mael felt a draught, a breath of open air. The white fog eddied, thinned, and for a moment he could see, through a gap where a building had been, and still far below him the dawn-lit plain, brown and black and grey and vast. A bird cried like a skirl of laughter.

He shivered, and shrank his nose into the collar of his cloak.

“Mael.”

In the mist, Rhan was there, too much and too close; his presence made the old man uneasy and he drew back. The Seneschal was huddled in some great grey cloak, his head bare, his face drawn and worried. A tan of guards formed a loose ring, all of them spear-armed and watchful.

Mael tried to peer past them.

“You found it. Did you find it?” He tried to be calm, but his voice squeaked with tension.

Rhan jutted his chin at the building beside him, a looming square shape in the fog.

“We know Phylos was hoarding food and terhnwood.” His deep voice was quiet, a rumble of threat. “Now we know where. Let’s hope this is good information – there might just be enough here to make the difference.” The sentence ended in a shrug that spoke for itself. The cool air from the plain shifted the mist about them, confusing. “Ready with the tally markers, Merchant Master?”