Ecko Rising (59 page)

But Ecko was grinning. “For chrissakes, that’s not the fucking Sical.”

Suddenly, the tavern was real, solid – snapped into focus by the incoming sound. Ecko was at the door, his heart pounding, pounding. There was a certain inevitable symmetry to this – the feeling, again, of the pattern repeating itself. This was
right
, somehow, it was the final realisation.

Faster than a thought, he grabbed the handles and threw both doors fully open.

“
Sical, my ass!” he said.

The noise grew worse. In the rippling moonlight, on a dead straight heading, was a single, glaring, white eye – screaming towards them out of smoke-scented dark grass.

“What the rhez...?” Redlock stared like an idiot, then hands tightened round his axe shafts. “This time, you bastard. This time you’re not coming back.”

“Fuck me.” Ecko was almost laughing. “The ratfuck son of a bitch’s got a Thundergod!”

“You know that creature?” Redlock watched it closely.

“You’d better fucking believe it.” Ecko grinned at the oncoming cyclopean beast, the red lights in his eyes flashing. “Jesus Harry Christ,” he muttered to himself. “Don’t bad guys
ever
die when you kill ’em?” He moved to stand in the doorway, arms folded, his cloak hem billowing in the dawn breeze.

Sera came to stand beside him, his expression cold and calm.

Redlock, sniffing like a cokehead, was on his other shoulder.

Before them, the bike was closing at impossible speed, the sound ringing from the stones. Maugrim’s eager stance was challenging the tavern wall to a game of chicken.

Roderick had joined them, Triqueta. Karine’s hand closed around her cosh. Kale had retreated to the kitchen, his worn face tense. None of them moved.

As it screamed past the last fallen sarsen and into the garden, the bike turned sideways, fell and skidded to a halt, throwing out a wall of dirt and soil. The awful noise cut out, and Maugrim’s voice, shouting something, rang in Ecko’s ears. The greaser scrambled to his feet, didn’t bother to pick the bike up. It lay there like a corpse, rear wheel idly turning, tyre packed with the dirt of the Varchinde.

Maugrim stepped over it, grinning. His t-shirt and cut-down were soaked in blood and oil and sweat, there was a livid bruise around his throat.

“Hello there, Rick,” he said. “Good to see you.” He spread his hands, weaponless, surrendering. “It’s a fair cop, guv. You got me. I’m handing myself in.”

* * *

“So,” Ecko said, his voice a chainsaw rasp. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

They’d sat the smirking Maugrim at the table’s end, the rocklight glimmering on his dirt-stained skin. The faint scent of smoke lingered in the air.

Redlock watched him closely, as if the axeman was itching to finish what he’d started.

“The Ecko.” Maugrim was carefully casual, leaning back, half his face in shadow, his hair a halo of unholy illumination. “The one and only. Bit lost aren’t you? Last anyone heard, the Ecko had sold out and joined Lugan’s strike team – pitting themselves in a doomed war against the might of Pilgrim Products Inc. Guess you weren’t as tough as you thought.”

“You know Lugan?” Ecko said. “Oh chrissakes, who the hell’m I kidding? You’re my end-of-level nasty – of course you fucking know Lugan.”

“Everyone knows Lugan.” Maugrim grinned. “Where d’you think I got the bike?”

Round them, Karine was bustling, herbal and plates of food. Sera watched the door.

“Shame you didn’t bring him with you – he probably
is
as hard as he thinks he is.” He picked up the herbal, eyed it warily. “You, Ecko, you messed up. You
died.
”

Died?

Landed on the tarmac like a lump of...

“Yeah, right.” Ecko was tense, adrenals flickering. He was aware of Amethea’s bruised stare, Redlock’s pacing agitation. “I didn’t fucking die.” The ’bot, the screaming London weather, falling. “Eliza put me here to Save the World.”

Even as he said it, it sounded ridiculous.

“Eliza!” The name was a guffaw. “They’d waste that sort of expense on you? I’m in the profession, you might say. And I know your profile, Gabriel – you’re a screw-up, a screaming pyrophile, a madman. Untreatable.” He was still laughing. “And now a megalomaniac. Save the World, my left nut.”

I know your profile, Gabriel
. Ecko found that he was crouched on his seat, trembling.
Gabriel.
He spat, “My profile?”

“Steady, my friend,” Roderick said quietly. “I know his trickeries of old – he baits you.”

Amethea’s voice was soft. “Don’t trust him.”

“Your profile.” Maugrim had lost his laughter, his voice was cold. “This isn’t some psychoprogram, you little freak, your own personal Virtual
Rorschach.
” The word was spat. “Who the hell would care about you
that
much?”

I am the pattern, the pattern spreads from me.

Megalomaniac.

His voice as clear as blind faith, Roderick said, “We do. He came here to help us.”

“I’m the one helping you, you bloody lunatic.” Maugrim was on his feet. “You know this, Rick – you explained it to me! You’re stagnant, no progress – your people have just let everything go, forgotten their lore and culture, forgotten it all. Like Pilgrim – it’s all apathy! Terhnwood and trade and tedium. Passionless. You know what I mean – we should tear it down, kick over the anthill. Progress has to happen or we’ll all fucking
rot.
”

Triqueta muttered, “You call that progress?”

“Of course I do!” Maugrim jabbed a ringed finger at her. “This is a fantasy, right? Sword’n’saucery, good’n’evil, law’n’chaos – Ecko, you know this shit as well as I do. And fantasy worlds have to have the Bad Guy, the Necromancer, the Lord of Dark – why? Because without him – or her – paradise’d be pointless. Unchallenged, unremarked. How can you get achievement with no struggle, satisfaction with no effort? How do you value anything when it’s just handed to you?”

How can you value anything
...
?

Ecko was caught. His own beliefs, distorted, slung back at him like a handful of toxic mud.

“This ends now.” Redlock muttered darkly. The axeman, at least, was clear of purpose. “All of it.”

“It’ll never end, warrior. While your terhnwood grows, while your trade cycles, you’ll disappear so far up your own arseholes you’ll lose sight of everything else. In the end, you’ll whine about the small shit because it’s all you’ll have left.”

Roderick said, “Wait a minute – wait. You said, ‘While your terhnwood grows...’ What’s going to happen to it? Phylos...?” His voice faded into horror, anticipation and realisation. “What is Phylos going to do?”

Maugrim laughed, threw his head back and guffawed at the ceiling. “You’re not as bloody green as you’re cabbage-looking, are you, Rick?”

“By the Gods.” The Bard was out of his seat. “I’ll carve the damned answer out of your skin if I have to! What is Phylos going to
do
?”

Maugrim stretched, grinned like a challenge.

But Ecko was no longer paying attention. In Maugrim’s zeal, he’d heard The Boss’s philosophy, Lugan’s battle against Pilgrim, the death of the woman he’d burned on the shit-hole bed.

Take away the big shit – it’ll be all you’ve got left.

As Maugrim faced the Bard, Ecko’s breathing was tightening, his boosting half kicked. He was poised on the precipice of its speed, its certainty... He wanted to embrace it, it would surge beyond doubt, beyond conscience... but he dared not let it go. The Sical’s might may scream in his veins, but its master was here – here, from his own world, from his own
head.

This isn’t some psychoprogram, you little freak, your personal Virtual
Rorschach.

What if...
Chrissakes!
His own doubts, his flickers of emotion and compassion.
What if this
was
real?
He couldn’t wrap his brain round the possibility.
What if there
was
no program – what if
... Panic was closing his throat. The walls of the tavern were dark, closed-in. There were weapons everywhere he looked.

“We’ve got every right to carve your answer from you.” Amethea’s voice was clear, cold. “You’ve committed torture, rape, murder, corruption – you’ve rained fire from the sky, set your creatures on Roviarath and that – thing – would’ve torn the Varchinde asunder.” She was as calm as still water. “I’ll wield the damned blade myself.”

“Little priestess, Amethea.” His voice was almost affectionate. “Your crimes are as bad as mine – and you know it.”

“No more, Maugrim.” She stood up. “No more head games, no more trickery, no more coercion. No more blood. Feren was my friend, my responsibility, his courage puts all of us to shame. I’ll pay whatever dues I have to – but you must answer for everything you’ve done. And not just to me.”

“Nice speech,” Maugrim told her. He stretched further back in his chair, grinning. He fumbled for something in the pocket of his cut-down.

Amethea stared at him, daring him to speak again. He twisted a smile at her.

“Feren’s memory isn’t lost.” Redlock leaned in and said softly, “You say you’ve walked the very Halls of the Rhez. Can you torture him, healer? In vengeance? In cold blood?”

“I’ve never taken a life,” Amethea said. “The stallion asked me...” She broke off. “I’ve never taken a life.”

Road hardened, blood covered, the axeman said, “Keep it that way.”

Roderick silently clapped his shoulder.

“The stallion was loco, anyhow,” Triqueta said, nudging her elbow. “Didn’t last too long.”

Maugrim chuckled. “Poor creature, my heart breaks for it.” He was wrapping something in his hand. “Losing a pet can be heartbreaking... though you can always go down the store for another one. The herd goes on, little lady. It was my gift – not my creation. Wouldn’t fit through the tunnels, y’know?”

He stretched further still, blazing with confidence, arms behind his head.

“You still haven’t told us where they came from.” Triq eyed Maugrim’s lazy pose with contempt. “Sitting there all damned smug – we’ve got you by your short and curlies, sunshine, and you’re going to spill it. All of it. Or I’m going to show you what a woman can really do.”

Maugrim’s gaze ambled all over Triq’s lithe body. He smirked.

“No offence, sweetheart – you’re a bit long in the tooth for me.”

She spluttered. “You – !”

“Don’t bother,” Amethea told her. “He’s just prodding you, making you react. I think he finds it amusing.”

“Well, I’m going to find him amusing in a minute.” Triq crossed her arms, glared. “Who made the monsters?”

Roderick said, “What is Phylos planning?”

Maugrim laughed outright at them.

Lost by the whirl of interrogation round him, Ecko was only half listening to the exchange. His mind was stumbling, reaching, reeling, questioning, spinning like a centrifuge round one word:
real.

It couldn’t be, it
couldn’t
be – like a true believer who’d lost his faith, he was searching for meaning in a sudden vacuum, the vacuum in which Eliza and her program had lived. He was responsible for his own choices, had been all along: he wasn’t being manipulated or tricked, wasn’t following a pattern...

But –

This had
so
been done to him! He’d jumped, out into the freezing wind from Grey’s rooftop, out into Eliza’s program and the fight against the corruption of his mind.

Or had he jumped into the certainty of his own death?

He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. The explanations were the same, inside and outside reflections of one another. This was fucking insane!

Pain in his fingertips told him he had Lugan’s lighter in his hand.
This is the Bike Lodge, mate...

Was he dreaming? Was he dead? Was he plugged into a shit-hole console after all? Up until now, he’d been playing some elaborate game – suddenly, he was dealing with the enormity of the impossible.

Real.

Maugrim was speaking again, his voice soft, insidious.

“You people, you’re all suffering – and I was told how to help you.”

He sat forward, and there was a chain in his hand, a flickering multicoloured light that danced back and forth.

“You should trust me, place your faith in me. I listen, I heed your pain and I heal.”

The chain swung gently.

“You misunderstand, don’t you? Yes, you know you do. The fire touches you – all of you. You, warrior, hate drives you, it burns in you and it’s made you strong. You, Amethea, you crave love, the love of the family you never had – and you’ll take that love, no matter how it’s offered. You, lady of the Banned, you’re all about desire – instant gratification, flesh, comfort, wealth. Karine, Sera, you’re outcasts that seek only family. And you, Bard with no memory, you poor deluded fool. You have such might – and you won’t use it; such strength – and you have no idea what it is. You’re a creature of fear, hiding behind the hoarding of knowledge so you don’t have to act. Rhan is gone – your greatest ally. You’ll never know how you failed him.”

Back and forth, enticing, compelling.

“There is love and forgiveness in Vahl’s heart – he’ll welcome you, all of you, and you can be free from the pain. You can belong.

“All you have to do is trust me.”

Triqueta said, voice low, “We trust you. What can we do?”

“And Ecko, Tam, lost and alone, striving for understanding. Lugan carries loyalty like a flag, he’d never abandon you, you know that. This has to be real, what else makes sense? Ecko, little daemon, Vahl Zaxaar knows you above all, he has a special place for you – you’re the darkness in which his fire burns brightest. It’s a place that’ll make all things make sense.

“Just trust me. I know you, all of you. And I can make you whole.”

Flickering, dancing light. Forgiveness and warmth radiated back from the walls as though Maugrim had tapped into the tavern’s lenslike focus, its welcome and sense of home. They stretched their hands to it, needing it like a warm bed on a cold night.