Ecko Rising

now you’re here too.” When Ecko still glowered, the grin spread. “Where else would you wish to be? We ride fate, here. Tonight, we’re in Roviarath. Tomorrow morning, we find a new location, another city perhaps. And the day after that...” The sentence ended in limitless possibility.

“That’s bullshit,” Ecko said, “you can’t just fucking teleport. What about your water, and –” he stopped short as he realised that if this was a constructed reality, the pub, like the moons, could do whatever the hell it wanted “– stuff?”

That made Roderick chuckle. “Our water comes with us. We move just before dawn and nine nights of the halfcycle it’s to somewhere we can trade. Occasionally, though, we do get a surprise. Eight days ago, we found ourselves in the ruins at Tusien, all our customers had been dead a thousand returns. Very bad for business.”

“Christ – they’ve dumped me in The Magic Faraway Pub.” Cursing, Ecko spun from the couch to kick at table bits and pace the room like a caged creature. He eyed his surroundings with a growing sneer: no weapons, no plastics, no electronics. In fact – he noticed this after a moment – no metal.

This was insane.

Eliza’s Virtual Rorschach was supposed to be therapy, for chrissakes – a long-term, total-immersion solution for the Boss’s more difficult personality cases. He didn’t know how it worked, but he knew that they’d clock his every reaction, and he knew that somewhere, there was gonna be some path or puzzle, something he had to solve or achieve or piece together. Maybe he could find it, get it the fuck sorted and get out – and maybe if he did it fast enough, he might even make it back with his brain intact.

Before they fixed him.

Chrissakes.

Once upon a time, Mom had made his body tamper-proof, unbreakable. Hell, maybe she’d made his head the same.

Roderick said, “You haven’t told me your name.”

“I’m Ecko, silent ‘G’.” He stopped his pacing by the desk and picked up a random piece of curly paper. He exhaled a tiny touch of flame. The paper flared eagerly then crumbled to black ash. “Though you really wouldn’t get the gag.”

“Ecko.” The Bard thought for a minute then continued, “You’re –”

A smart rap on the door cut him off.

Ecko turned, half crouched, his cloak mantling, ash scattering, but the Bard extended a calming hand.

“It’s all right,” he said. “That’ll be dinner. Having no idea what you eat, we thought it best to start simple.”

Recoiling, biting back a sarcastic response, Ecko stared at the door, his oculars cycling.

It opened to reveal a young woman with a tray propped on one hip. She was curvy, with shining brown hair and a cleavage you could’ve parked a bike in. Like the Bard, she had no enhancements, no weapons, no metal. There was something impertinent in her stance.

Lugan would’ve been all over her like a tattoo.

For a split second, Ecko had a vision of the young woman slapping the huge biker round the face. He almost grinned. Then the grin fractured and broke – Lugan was a million miles away, in another world, walled apart on the outside of Ecko’s skull.

Lugan was lost.

Lugan had sold him the fuck out.

Lugan was in deep shit when Ecko got outta here.

He shook his fingers and the last flakes of ash drifted to the floor.

The woman said, “What did you do to my table?” It was the same voice that Ecko had heard earlier.

“Karine.” The Bard stood up. “Meet Ecko. All things considered, he’s adjusting remarkably swiftly. Perhaps, when you have a moment...?” Roderick left the question unfinished but the young woman seemed to know what he meant.

“When do I ever get a moment?” She put the tray down on the arm of the couch, then straightened up to treat Ecko to a broad wink. “I run this building, and don’t let him tell you otherwise.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Roderick said, eyeing the rafters.

The tray contained some sort of pottery bowl that steamed with a surprisingly rich, meaty scent, and a hunk of something that looked like real bread, grainy and rough. Ecko had an odd urge to pick the bread up, break it, understand its texture. His belly growled, distressingly human.

Karine chuckled. “Don’t worry, you can eat it safely, we’re not going to try and poison you or anything.” She treated Roderick to an arched brow. “Though you are going to have to haggle for the table. And when you’ve picked up the bits, you can turf out the big room under the roof. You know the one. It’s got all your souvenirs in it.”

The Bard grinned at the gibe.

She harrumphed at him, then said, “There’s also more news... But that can wait for now.”

Roderick shot her a look. Her responding gesture was tiny, but Ecko’s targeters tracked it like prey. He picked up a second piece of paper from the desk, and turned it between his fingers.

Karine said, “I’ll come back in a bit, make sure you’re settling in okay, let you meet the others. In the meantime, don’t let this one talk your ears off. He’s a good man, but he is a bit crazed.”

With a twitch of her hips, she was gone, hooking a foot to pull the door shut after her.

After a moment’s quiet, Ecko said, the words biting, “‘Crazed’ huh? Maybe you’re the one in therapy.”

The Bard picked up a piece of the table, then threw himself down on the couch.

“I was given this building because I believe in a certain future – a vision, I suppose. And when I found you, I brought you in here because I believe that you’re a part of that vision. That future.” He held Ecko’s black eyes for a moment. “I’ve seen you before.”

...A path or a puzzle, something he had to solve or piece together...

A chill of inevitability skittered down Ecko’s spine, then a flare of anger like panic, like the closing of a trap.

“Fantastic. So – what? You gotta prophecy that says I kick the ass of the God of Evil? A Major McNasty that’s about to wake up? How ’bout a World-Shaking War?” His sarcasm was vicious. “Where do I start?”

With a wry chuckle the Bard replied, “Sadly, it’s not that simple. There is no ‘prophecy’ – I wish there was. There is no ‘God of Evil’ – no ‘Major Nasty’ – not really one that does house calls. And the last World-Shaking War was a very long time ago.” He stood up, shot a rueful glance at the remains of the table and then shrugged. “If it’d been that easy, this would already be over.”

“What would be already be over?”

“That,” he said, “is what I’ve spent my life finding out.”

“Jesus shit.” Ecko stared. His stomach grumbled again. He ignored it. “You dunno, do you? Loremaster, my ass.”

Roderick said, “I know enough to know how much I don’t know – and with every return, it becomes clearer. Look, like this...” With a dextrous flick of his fingers, he was holding a flash of metal. “Is this familiar?”

Ecko’s targeters flashed, he was away from the desk in an eye blink. He snatched it from Roderick’s hand. His flicker of inevitability – helplessness, almost claustrophobia – rose to a thunder. A wash of returning nausea made him breathe, breathe.

He looked down at what he’d grabbed.

It was a lighter – heavy, square, chrome plated and, so far, the only piece of metal he’d seen. On one side was engraved the Harley logo. On the other...

On the other, it said: Alexander David Eastermann.

“This is Lugan’s.” He gripped the lighter harder, as if it were the only solid thing in existence. “He lost it, like...”

Like yesterday.

For a moment, the complete insanity of the situation screamed at him – he wanted to push the walls down, like a film set, tear the scene from top to bottom as if it were only fabric, reveal the Bike Lodge that lurked just behind it... didn’t it?

Didn’t it?

But the Bard was still speaking, as if nothing strange had happened.