Ecko Rising

The writing had faded to deep blue, ink bled out into the page. She brought the rocklight close and began to read:

Thus it appeared to my eyes upon landing that the Strait has fooled us, and we had failed to disembark upon the much-beloved Substance of the Gods, yet had instead landed upon the cruel shores of a hostile world. The fabled and beauteous inhabitants of the

Ilfead-Syr

were illustrated in old murals taller yet than a man, and more graceful than the most elegant of women, powerful of mind and body and voice. They bore skin between their fingers and between

their toes, and they were able to see in the turbulent waters that surround the island.

We carried gifts to them – the strength of muara, the power of cauxe, the beauty of ghyz, and we carried the greetings of the mainland, not heard in a thousand returns of the spring.

How could we have believed that the Substance of the Gods, the

Ilfead-Syr,

the home of the Well of the World’s Memory, could be so utterly chilling to the souls of such as we?

The chill could be heard in the silence, felt in the air, it leeched the warmth from our very feet. The weakest of the crew broke and ran for the water to lose the sense of nothingness in the turbulence of the waves.

How long we walked with the chill sinking into our bones, I do not now remember, but we found at last the island’s inhabitants, their beauty no fable and seen even in their deaths. Yet their faces were empty – their eyes held nothing but nothing, telling us that nothing had been their deaths.

Jayr paused and read that bit again. It didn’t make any more sense the second time.

How better can my poor language explain what we have seen? How long they have been dead I do not know, but even now, they are still whole, as if only asleep, and there are thousands of them here.

Aleche, God of Inspiration, grant me only that I may portray the depth of horror witnessed by our eyes. The farther we searched, the more dead we found, slumped in their homes, or curled against walls where they had simply fallen. All were made more terrible by their faces, faces that held, not despair, and yet not relief or release, and yet not even a sense of duty, guilt or fear. Their eyes reflected nothing, they held emptiness, lethargy, apathy, as though a

thriving and joyous population, the Guardians of the Ilfe, the Well of Memory, an entire race and culture, had died of simply giving up.

Jayr shivered and rubbed at the back of her neck where her hair was tickling. It was getting colder in here.

And the

Ilfe

was gone! Gone as if it had never been! How is the World to live without her memory? My horror complete, I turned to my crew, seeking their support and friendship, only to find myself alone in the glade of the Well. Alone on this island of the dead, on an island where this empty death would still be stalking.

My journey back to the ship has been as a nightmare to me. Fallen with the dead of the island are now the dead of my friends, their faces holding the same awful emptiness, even their weapons undrawn. What manner of enemy can cause such utter destruction? Why have I, and only I, been spared the fate of the crew?

So thus do I wait for this death to stalk me at last. I write what I have seen, and it shall be hidden in the hope that it will return to the mainland to be seen by other eyes than mine. All my horror and my grief do I pour into this text, and when it is gone, I feel that this death of nothing will come for me.

The fears of this island are founded in reality. Do not, I beg of you, ever return here. I pronounce this island as Ramm-Outhe – Accursed of the Gods. We have lost the Ilfe. The World will die because she cannot remember.

Jayr put the book down and rubbed bone-deep cold from her arms and shoulders. Her scars crawled with tension.

“Ress...?”

“I said work!”

“Listen to this.” She read him the tale, watching him, saw his eyes widen and his shoulders shiver as hers had done. His jaw lax, he took off the glasses and his expression washed with perplexity, then rising disbelief. As she finished, he mouthed the word “Ramm-Outhe”, then said, “There’s a tale that the Bard visited Rammouthe on some sort of mission, and came back scragged. Everyone that went with him died. There’s a daemon, a beastie, meant to be incarcerated there?”

“And it cooked him, I take it?”

“He didn’t find a beastie, he got munched by the wildlife. The tale of the daemon goes back further than that though, I’m trying to remember how it goes...”

“What? You lose your memory too?”

That made him blink, almost as if he sought to attach significance to what she’d said – as if the loss of the world’s memory could somehow also affect their own. He unclipped his glasses, pointed them at her.

“Have you ever been to Fhaveon? It’s an odd city – it’s built backwards, like a fortress facing the water, facing Rammouthe Island across the Bava Strait. The tale goes that Fhaveon was built on the site of an older city, a city razed to dust and ashes by the very daemon that Roderick went seeking. When the daemon was defeated, and Saluvarith built Fhaveon, the God Samiel sent a creature of light and warfare to be a guardian, and to ensure that the daemon would never return.”

“Come off it,” Jayr said. “That’s exactly the garbage they tell in the market –”

“Put the book down.” The voice was cold, female. Both Ress and Jayr started. Jayr was on her feet, her stance instinctive and her breathing tense – but the woman stood a way back, cloaked in the library’s shadows.

“Dear Gods.” Ress scrabbled upright, almost dropping his pince-nez.

The woman was tall, gaunt, pale, she wore the gloom like a gown. Caressed by darkness, one long slim leg was visible, one white shoulder, one side of a sharp-boned face.

“My Lord.” As flustered as she’d ever seen him, Jayr watched Ress touch both hands to his sternum and bow, spreading his arms wide. It was an obscure and formal gesture the Banned rarely used. As he shot her a look, she awkwardly did the same, feeling oversized and clumsy. The book in her hand felt like it was made of stone.

“Ress of the Banned. Jayr the Infamous. What brings you to my library?”

“Knowledge, my Lord.” Ress was almost stuttering. “I –”

“The centaurs.” She gave a brief nod. “I understand why the Banned would be curious – half man, half horse, is that not your prerogative?”

Jayr said, “How do you – ?”

“Know?” The woman gave a soft, chill laugh. “This is Amos, and I am her Lord. Little happens in the Greater Varchinde that the grass does not bring to the walls of my city.”

“You’re Nivrotar?” The question was out before Jayr could stop it. “Ah... my Lord?”

“You take me for a custodian?” Nivrotar, Lord of Amos, probably the single most feared of the Grassland’s CityWardens, unwrapped herself from the shadow. “There have not been custodians in the library for many returns.”

As tall as Jayr, as lean as a knife blade, face angular and beautiful and cold, she carried herself as if the library was her courtroom. White skin and black hair, a black gown that left one long leg free, that bared her shoulders and whispered on her skin as she moved. The shadows seemed to follow her, a cloak of darkness she bore with long ease.

She wasn’t Grasslander. Her colouring was Kartian, Tundran? Her features and poise Archipelagan? She was every realm of the world and more.