Ecko Rising

Like the nartuk, but bigger, far bigger, than he had ever imagined.

Beside him, Triqueta held the headstall of her little palomino mare. She was edgy, watching the pre-dawn with an echo of his nervousness. Picking up on her mistress’s mood, perhaps, the little horse threw her head up and down and stamped a splayed forehoof, the sound a heavy, dull thudding that seemed loud in the softening twilight.

Triq stroked her neck.

With them was the one remaining member of the die-hard, dawn patrol Banned. Jayr the Infamous was not one for the noisy crowds of a taproom – she was something of a loner, very young, ludicrously powerful, oddly awkward in company. She was also one of the finest open-handed fighters the Varchinde had ever seen. Her scalplock and meticulously, brutally carved scars were Kartian, her dark eyes those of a Grasslander and she had a powerful, Archipelagan physique. Both sets of knuckles were permanently scabbed over and her nails were bitten to the quick. Her big, bay gelding stood with his head down, snuffling at the cobblestones for errant greenery.

The remainder of the Banned had ridden – just about – for their campsite, mounts finding their way when riders could not. Syke, sharp-eyed and gleefully sleazy, would want to know what had happened. Jayr, unspeaking, had stayed.

Her hefty, cross-armed stance said just in case.

Ress’s skill was considerable, but Feren’s body was tainted with harm – he had an infection that was eating him from the inside out. The boy had fought so hard and come so far; his only hope of succour lay in reaching the city’s hospice.

“The Count of Time creeps upon us,” Roderick said, eyeing the sky. “Perhaps more than you know. Good fortune ride with you, Ress of the Banned.” He had so much more he wanted to articulate: he wanted to wrest his feeling of unease into visibility, to show them the tremble of anticipation in his heart.

But now, of all times, his eloquence had failed him.

“We’re slow – days from city limits.” Ress was sat in the front of the wagon, the rein in his lap. The heavy, slope-shouldered chearl stood quiet in the traces. “And we’re as vulnerable as –”

“Ress,” the Bard said softly, his certainty apparently absolute, “you’ll make it.”

You have to. You have to tell –

“Do my best.” The apothecary took a breath, made an effort to smile. “Failure’s a part of success – don’t get to my age without learning that.”

Roderick clapped his arm, moved to the great wooden doors that held the open grass at bay. “You have both heart and courage. Not to mention an escort that kicks arse. When you reach Roviarath, take Feren’s tale to CityWarden Larred Jade and tell him everything – everything – that the boy has told us. The city needs to know – and they must surely seek the missing Xenotian girl, the teacher.” His tone had a thrum of urgency, it curled like creeper in his throat. For a moment, he left the doors alone, turning as if to conjure the image of Feren’s monster from the cold stone of the moonlit yard. “You’ll have to make him comprehend...” He stumbled, unable to wrest this odd and shapeless terror from his mouth.

“You believe this?” Ress sounded surprised. “Half man, half horse – alchemical experimentation? It’s loco.” Feren muttered, and Ress twisted to look back at him. “He was dehydrated, in pain, his mind conjured figments. He probably saw a Deep Patrol.”

“A Deep Patrol?” Roderick turned again to the wagon, door unopened. The fact that Ress had no time for Feren’s creatures had taken him completely aback. “Whatever his monsters may be, their existence is –”

“You’re jesting. Alchemy like that –”

“Hasn’t existed since the high days of Tusien – I know at least that much lore.” The Bard chuckled as if strangling the tension in his throat. “Such creations –”

“Are impossible. I’m an apothecary, I know the limits of flesh.”

“And hasn’t this boy just surpassed those limits?”

The question brought Ress up short. With a tight sigh, he managed, “Hardly the same thing.”

Triq looked up, the dying moonlight caught a glitter in the stones in her cheeks. “Larred Jade’s a practical man – we can’t go in there with half-brewed tales of saga-borne beasties.”

Ress snorted. “He’d throw away the key.”

Jayr frowned and tore at her fingernails with teeth. Agitated, the little palomino tapped her forehoof. Triq patted her shoulder. For a moment, tension spun the dust at their feet into scuttling whirlwinds.

“We should go,” Triq said finally, “before we land at the arse end of the Gods-Alone-Know-Where.”

“Sorry.” Ress shrugged at the Bard, picked up the rein. “This is real, it isn’t one of your stories.”

The words were a dismissal, a request to throw open the gateway and let them go – but Roderick didn’t move. There was urgency in him now – the monsters were real, they had to be, he had to make them understand.

“Everything’s a story to someone,” he said and before Ress could answer, he turned away from the doors completely and gestured at the wagon, at the restlessly sleeping boy. “And this one must have an audience. Whatever these things may be, their threat is most certainly real – alchemy, the creation of creatures like this – it’s no myth. Just because you can’t see it, Ress of the Banned, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”

Over the wall, the light was slowly paling, tiny wildflowers shook in the breeze. Almost trembling now, the Bard continued, “The Powerflux gives the world her seasons, her weather, her light and her darkness – you’re Banned, you live with these things in your blood. That this power has other manifestations is surely only sense?”

“This’d better not be your ‘Great Power that Ends the World’ speech.” Triq rolled her eyes, though tolerantly. “You can play Prophet Loco on your own time, sunshine. The poor kid’s half –”

“I’m not playing.” The edge in his voice was sharp. “I feel the truth of this, in my heart and in my skin. If these monsters exist, they’re an alchemical formula left over from the days of Tusien – something we’ve not been able to create in a thousand returns. I have a visitor, a champion come to me from outside, a traveller to whom our whole existence is a story –”

“You have a visitor? From another world?” Now Triq was smothering laughter. “Oh dear Gods. Been at the smoke-weed, have we?”

“You’re not helping your case,” Ress commented bleakly. “Or your credibility.” His expression was humourless. “My priority’s the kid. And no way am I taking tales of monsters into a CityWarden’s hearing without proof. You’re jesting.”

“No,” Roderick said softly. “I’m not.”

Tension rose like the edge of the sunrise. Feren cried out, wordless and laden with pain.

And then came the shock.

An edge of a memory, a cold point in Roderick’s heart, something that was there-and-gone, terrifying but utterly formless. He knew it, he knew it, and he had no idea why. It was an after-echo of a nightmare, chill and tantalising, shivering through his skin – and even as he was reaching to understand it, it had faded into the morning.

What...?!

His breath had congealed and he found he was shaking, his hands palsied with a desperate need to grab this thing, to see it and name it.

Fired by a rush of frustration, he said, “This is no story! How can I find words to frame this? Ecko is here; he brings darkness and fire and strength the likes of which I’ve never seen! He understands my tale, my vision, the world’s lost memory.” The words had a bitterness he could barely suppress. “I feel the Count of Time at my back. Call me madman if you will, insane prophet – whatever name you choose to give me –” he came forwards, the early light in his eyes “– but take this tale to Jade – tell him everything!”

“Tell him yourself!” Triqueta said.

“I must carry this to Fhaveon – to Rhan, and to the Council of Nine. To the Foundersson himself!”

“Gods,” Ress said, sharp as a punch in face. “They’ll lock you up.”

The Bard’s plea tumbled into silence; it fell like a grey pebble in the pre-dawn light and rolled, disregarded, across the courtyard. For a moment, he wanted to rail with hopeless, helpless, timeless fury, I am a Guardian of the Ryll, such instincts are my training and my strength. I can feel the truth of them in my blood and bone. How can I make you understand?

But he knew that such words meant nothing – that they would fall forlorn and spin forgotten across the stone