Ecko Rising

Ecko knew jack and shit about agriculture. But he did know when he was on to something – his adrenaline was sparking and he was down from the barrel and pacing, a small, tight figure of shadow and gloom and sharp, hard focus.

What was it he’d missed?

He spun, closed his hand round the tiny resin shard and felt its edges nip his fingers.

Think!

His brain was firing, ricocheting from one idea and theory to the next. The terhnwood grew at the three coastal cities – Annondor in the south, Amos and the capital city Fhaveon – there.

He tracked the map, the rivers, the roads.

Then it hit him, just as if the Lord of Motivation had planted a boot clean up his ass...

It was empty.

Vast, open plainland. Scattered habitation. No stars in the sky; no metal in the rock. No lore. A horizon that gave every fucking appearance of being flat.

How in the name of everything that was unholy did they navigate? Just by the sun?

The thought brought a rush of thrill in his skin.

Was that why they didn’t, or couldn’t, travel across the grass? It had to be more than just superstition.

Oh, now I’ve got you...

Could this possibly, possibly, be making some kind of sense? He was staring like a man demented, his hand still curled round the tiny piece of resin. What if they had no effective way to cross open distances? Then their entire culture was restricted to the trade-ways that it knew.

One part of his brain was laughing at him – jeering while he tried to apply reason to a world that had two opposing moons and a werewolf in the kitchen – but he smothered the fuck out of it and kept going.

He was still missing loads of stuff. If they struggled to navigate, who’d built the roads in the first place? If the society was peaceful and prosperous, then why was the population so fucking small? So hugely spread out? It wasn’t like they were short of food.

Was there some other factor here, something he’d not seen yet? Threat issues? Beasties clawing down city walls and chewing up farmland? Insane weather systems tearing the plains to dust and shreds?

Or was the Big McNasty already on the move?

More than that though – maybe the Bard himself was restricted in the same way? What had he said about landing in populated places?

Was he, too, unable or unwilling to cross the open grass?

Was that why he was missing so much learning?

Oh yeah, I’ve fucking cracked this.

In the fading rocklight, Ecko’s grin was like a curving slice of nightmare, the new glimmer of a pure black moon. He was shivering with something between adrenaline and anxiety – something that felt like cold anticipation.

There’s something that fucker hasn’t told me.

Something he’s avoiding – something he’s afraid of?

Well, whatever the fuck it was, Ecko was going back up there to kick it out of him, if that was what it took.

* * *

When Ecko came back up to the taproom, he found the Bard sitting alone.

It was utterly, swallowing dark; the only light came from the white feather that Roderick held in his fingers. He was spinning it, and its pale illumination played over his face like the teasing of a ghost.

In that faint light, he looked old. His eyes were shattered, sparking insane. The lines around them were carved into his flesh, the shadows beneath were as deep as the shadows that lurked like spectres round the room. His lips were moving as though he prayed.

As Ecko crept closer, he could hear the words.

“...Searching almost a hundred returns – I have dug every ruin, I have found every treasure, I have told every tale, I have faced every foe. Wherever these creatures are coming from...” The shadows scudded, this way and that, as the feather spun forwards and back.

“Just this time, please; just this time...” Roderick swallowed hard, almost as if he were choking. “If my will can infest this wood, this brick, this life – please give me the choice...!” His other hand was flat on the table as if it was scanning his fingerprints or something. “I need to understand. I must –”

“Jeez,” Ecko said. “What crawled up your ass and died? You look like shit.”

Roderick didn’t even start. He looked up, listless, his face drawn and lined. He looked like he’d spent the night writing mournful poetry in something thoughtfully entitled “My Diary”.

“I feel like it,” he said.

A moment later, he straightened his shoulders and pinned his grin back in place, his wicked expression that made the lines both mischievous and youthful. The light returned to his eyes. Ecko had an uncanny feeling that the man’s mask had slipped, just for a moment.

But the face he’d seen was gone.

“All right, asshole,” Ecko said. “I reckon it’s time you ’fessed up.”

“What? What do you mean?” Roderick laid the feather on the table and his grin broadened, just as if he’d never been without it.

“Why a sudden need to drive?” Ecko grinned at him, cold. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna get off your ass an’ make a decision.”

“And what ‘decision’ would you suggest?” The Bard’s eyes flickered with echoes, though he didn’t voice them. “I’ve always trusted the world herself to move this building as she needs; trusted it to manifest itself in places of wisdom and necessity. The Wanderer is wiser than I.” He picked up the feather and began, again, to turn it in his fingers. “But tonight... Ecko, I wish you had been here to bear witness. The Banned found an injured boy, and our every fear is manifest. This is bigger and more terrifying that I have words to even frame. Not just the nartuk, a true tale of monsters – crazed beasts crafted from human flesh and will...” His knuckles were white. “How can I give words to my fear? I feel the gathering of the Count of Time. The vision I cannot remember pierces me as a sliver of ice and I feel figments like wings at my back. The Banned must rouse Larred Jade at Roviarath, and I... I have to take this to Fhaveon.”

“What? You’re not gonna go look for the monsters?” Ecko had a satchel on his shoulder – a one-armed rucksack thing that had been among his scavenged haul. His webbing was likewise stuffed with stolen goodies. He said, “When’re you gonna quit stalling and strap on your hero kit?” His grin was savage.

“I don’t understand yet.” For a moment, the Bard’s expression was startled. “I must go to Fhaveon, to Rhan. I must know what these things are, where they came from, why they’re –”

“Another fuckin’ excuse. If you wanna know about monsters, why don’t you go out an’ catch one?”

“The Council has to know!” Roderick brandished his feather like some sort of evidence. “If there are monsters loose, real ones, alchemical creations of flesh and horror – these things have not been witnessed since the days of Tusien itself! This isn’t just a romp, Ecko! The cities must be warned – there are things happening here that are ancient and forgotten, yet new enough to be terrifying, and they involve the fate of the Grasslands entire. I’m no politician –”

“No shit.”

“Yet I must – !”

“You must what? Sometimes I reckon you’ve been waiting for the bad guys so long that you’ve gone batshit.” He sneered. “You gotta map downstairs. You’ve had this building – what – forty years? Have you looked at it, plotted anything, worked anything out? You fucking coward.”

The Bard recoiled as if he’d been struck. For a moment, he sought words and found nothing. Ecko waited for the comeback, then snorted pure scorn.

“You’re telling me all merry hell has just broken loose on your doorstep – and the best you can do is sit here and pray that your fucking pub makes your next decision for you?”