Ecko Rising (51 page)

“I did
not –
!” The cry was torn like a sob from Rhan’s throat – a cry of denial and horror. “I did not touch the Lord Demisarr, nor lay hands on his wife, I
–
!”

“You
lie
, daemon!” Savagely, Phylos rounded on him, his red robes vivid as gore. He used his voice like a goad, forcing the crowd into a frenzy. “You are an
infection
! You have controlled and manipulated the sons of Saluvarith all your life! You have sat in this very room and pulled our strings like puppets! You claim innocence, yet you have inflicted such harm...!” He turned to Selana, overpowering in his presence and strength. “If he is innocent, my Lord, it is time for him to tell us the truth behind his longevity. The truth behind the
bargains
he has made that have given him four hundred returns of life!”

Phylos turned back to Rhan with a curiosity that verged on avid.

Flattened by Phylos’s demand, Selana, also, turned to look at him.

“The Merchant Master is right,” she said. Her voice was small in the chaos, but the crowd quietened to hear her. “You are a blight upon the city – and a blight upon my family.” The word was a painful crack and she stood up, quivering with tension. “You are a drain upon our resources and a stagnation to our growth. Your time is done.”

For a moment, Rhan could only stare at her.

He said, his voice barely a growl, “Make no mistake, the daemon Vahl Zaxaar exists. And he will return.”

But the words fell to the floor and he realised they sounded as ludicrous as Roderick’s visions. The crowd were tittering, some calling for answers and others for blood.

His hands still bound, Rhan raised his voice to call over them.

“All my life, Merchant Master,” he said, “I have guarded the children of Saluvarith, and I have watched the Grasslands flourish under Fhaveonic rule.” In the sea of people, jeers began. “I swore my oath of allegiance to the First Lord Foundersson Tekissari, who named me his Seneschal, and I have upheld that oath for four hundred returns. To whom have you sworn your allegiance, Phylos? To your own
greed
?”

For a second, he almost had it. There was a moment of quiet, the stillness in the eye of the storm – a moment when Selana turned startled eyes upon her mentor, where Valicia’s gaze narrowed. Gorinel the priest studied Rhan intently. The soldier Mostak’s forehead lined as he strained to think.

But Phylos laughed – astonished, disbelieving laughter that shattered the stillness like crystal.

“You choose now to spread dissent?” He guffawed, as if at a great jest. Then his laughter was shut off. “Answer the question, Rhan. To whom have you sold your soul? To what?”

Ignoring Phylos, ignoring the crowds’ mockery, Rhan faced Selana, and paused.

The room was seething with heat.

He sank to one knee.

“I am Rhan, Lord Seneschal of Fhaveon,” he said. “And I swear by my Gods-given mandate that I am Dæl Rhan Elensiel, Master of Light, keeper of Saluvarith’s vision, and of this mortal world. I love and guard this city with everything I am. And when my damned brother returns... My Lord, heed me. Without me, you and everything you love will perish in flames and screaming.”

The theatre was silent. Selana stared, stunned. Valicia’s skin was white.

Then, somewhere in the crowd, Rhan could hear Scythe’s voice, shrieking accusations.

Knowing he had only this one moment, the single chance to seize the situation, Rhan said, “You know your legends, my Lord. You know who and what I am, and why I have lived four hundred returns.” He raised his voice to call out up through the Theatre, his voice filling the room with sound. “And you know that I did not, could not, have raised my hand against the Lord Demisarr – or against his wife.”

Gathering her wits, Selana opened her mouth to speak.

But Phylos was frighteningly fast. “Would one of the Dæl import illegal drugs? Seduce the city’s idle and take them from their work? Host parties that damage and distress our youth?”

Rhan stared.

“I say you are a plague – a blight. I say you are
arta ekanta,
a daemon figment that has taken on the form of the city’s saviour!” Phylos moved around the edge of the table and raised his voice to an impassioned cry. “Perhaps you
are
Vahl Zaxaar! You are corruption in our
midst
!”

Horrified by the speed with which Phylos had overturned his plea, Rhan tried to stop him.

“No – !”

“And I say you must
die
!”

The soldiers stepped forwards to restrain him. About him, the crowd surged into outcry, demanding satisfaction. He looked for help, but there was no one to even meet his gaze.

His failure could not have been more complete.

There was no further assurance he could give, no way he could reclaim his place – the city belonged to Phylos and there was no move he could make.

He collapsed to his knees, the heat sobbing in his chest.

And they dragged him upright, and walked him from the theatre for the very last time.

* * *

Rammouthe Island.

By legend, the Island Accurséd. The home of the Ilfead-Syr, the world’s lost memory. The last refuge of the sleeping Kas Vahl Zaxaar.

From this height, it was grey line against the horizon, a hummock of darkness.

No ship had touched its shore since the Bard’s disastrous reconnaissance, some forty returns previously. No foot had dared its soil. Stood upon the very top of the sheer, white wall that ran down the eastern edge of the Fhaveon to the roiling sea, Rhan wondered, rather foolishly, if they would release his wrists – if he should swim the Bava Strait and reach the island safely.

And what would be waiting for him if he did.

If anything still lay there, the island had swallowed it long ago and refused to give it up.

The sky above Rhan’s final moments was vast and distant, merciless. If the Gods were there, they did not look down to see him. Images assaulted him – plummeting through air and cold and pain, war and chaos, stormy skies and hammering seas, scourging the city’s foes with light and with metal, Kas Vahl Zaxaar, closer than brother and powerful, terrible enemy...

...the tiny newborn that was the next Foundersson or daughter, holding each one in his white hands and promising them his loyalty until the end of the Count of Time...

Rhan lifted his face to the wind.

“A long wait, my estavah,” he said to the horizon. “And this is how it ends? Wake up, damn you. You owe me breakfast.”

But, like the Gods, his brother did not heed him.

It was Phylos who came to stand with him, red robes snapping in the cold wind. Further back, Valicia had come to watch and Selana, Lord Foundersdaughter, stood with her mother’s hands on her shoulders. The warrior Mostak stood with them, looking for a moment like a sharper, colder version of his murdered brother. They were a family wronged, and he could see nothing in their faces that spoke of understanding.

I did not do this. You must know...

“Last words?” said Phylos softly.

Then something crawled into the edges of Rhan’s awareness – something strange.

With a peculiar shock, Rhan realised that the curious, sweating heat he had felt in the theatre was coming from the Merchant Master himself. In Phylos’s Archipelagan frame there burned eagerness, anticipation. Expectation. A whetted and savage hunger that was as familiar to Rhan as his own white light.

Knowledge crystallised in an instant and, as though his own light had shown him, he understood.

He
understood.

And the weight of it drove him to his knees.

How could he have been so stupid? So phenomenally blind? How could he
...
?

“No.” He wasn’t even aware that he’d said it aloud. “You can’t have...”

“Oh but I can.” Phylos smiled at him like an old friend. “Rhan, your indolence has damned you as effectively as the words of Samiel himself. Your bonds hold you in honour – spiritually as well as physically – and in a moment, you will tumble from the top of this wall. When you do, the Varchinde loses her head.” He watched the horizon, still smiling. “Think, Rhan Elensiel, as you’re falling, so House Valiembor is falling with you. And it’s not the only one.” His warmth grew. “Your brother, your estavah – he stirs with might. And his time will
come.
”

“Don’t do this. Whatever he offered you –”

“Are those your last words?” Phylos laughed. “There will be no war, Rhan, why should there be? I hold the trade-life of the Varchinde in my hand. The city and the Grasslands belong to me. Why should there be returns of bloodshed, strife and fighting, back and forth, when these things can be so simple? The head –” he ran a finger across his throat “– and the heart.”

Rhan said, “Roviarath. You damned bastard, what did you
do
?”

Phylos reached out a hand and snapped a tiny fragment of metal around Rhan’s still-bound forearm. It burned – but Rhan didn’t know what it was.

“Now,” Phylos said, “will you jump – or do I have to push you?”

The metal bracelet itched. The Merchant Master leaned in, tapped it and said, “A little... security. I want to make sure you hit the water, and I want to watch you
drown.
”

Rhan shook off Phylos’s touch, walked to the very edge of the wall. Below him, there were carved faces of creatures in the stone, their teeth bared at the sea. To the north, the Swathe River roared from its gorge and the water seethed white and angry.

He turned his back on the drop and faced his accusers.

“My Lady,” his voice was solid, even in the wind. “Upon Samiel’s name, I did not take the life of the Lord Demisarr, nor inflict any harm upon yourself.”

Valicia snapped back at him, “I bear your bruises on my
skin
.”

“I will return when I can prove my words.” He stepped backwards into the empty air. “Look for me.”

And he fell.

Again.

The last thing he heard was Phylos’s voice, “Now we finish this. Get me the Bard.”

26: CATHEDRAL

                    
THE MONUMENT

An image danced enticing in the brazier’s light...

Roviarath.

The Grasslands’ most populous city, the hub of the Varchinde’s ever-cycling trade. Maugrim had lived on her doorstep, he knew her strength: to the west, the waterways that brought wood and stone from Irahlau and Vanksraat, the exquisite craftsmanship of the Kartiah; to the east, the Great Cemothen River and the trade-route to the docks and spice markets of Amos, the triremes of the Archipelago.

About her fine and decorous stone skirts, the vast defenceless sprawl of the Great Fayre – now evacuated, abandoned and skeletal at the CityWarden’s back.

CityWarden Larred Jade sat mounted, waiting.

About him, his militia. He’d sent the younger ones and the ones with families to warn the farmlands, and block the trade-roads. With him waited his veteran range patrols, nine tan in all, ninety warriors, thirty of them mounted. Upon the wall, another seventy archers.

A ludicrous and pitiful number. And Maugrim knew – not one of them had ever fought anything more dangerous than a road-pirate.

They were the over-stuffed city’s only defence.

And the Monument’s creatures, fire and stone, were blazing through the grass towards them.

Come the dawn, the Fayre would burn like a Fawkes’ Night fire.

And while Jade was dealing with the aftermath, the Sical would raze Roviarath to the ground – all but the walls.

And the heart of the plains would stop beating.

* * *

Triqueta paused on the edge of an impossible garden.

Deep under the Monument’s glow, verdant, swarming and growing almost as she watched it, was a madness of crumbling stone and lushly tangled, fecund life. There were trees – insane that they should grow down here – stooped and aching under the weight of wild, strangling vines, pulling them down until their trunks splintered. There were archways leading from nowhere to nowhere, broken buildings, twisted staircases that ended in only air, their stone cracking under clawing fingers of creeper.

A spreading, thorny knot of wild bramble blanketed everything, entangling and burying it. In places, it flowered in delicate white; in others, it bore fruit that rotted uneaten. Down here, the very seasons were corrupt.

She was shaken to her core, weakened and uncomprehending.

What had Tarvi done?

Her knees hurt, her back, the joints of her fingers. Her face felt strange, tight, the stones in her cheeks somehow loose. The skin on her arms and hands was spotted with age, no longer her own. Her
hair
felt wrong.

She had no way to see her own reflection. And she was afraid.

Yet they’d staggered, Redlock coughing blood like an old man, down a curve of ancient, clumsily hewn tunnel and found themselves on the edge of...

...this.

This was ornamental lunacy, the Goddess herself driven loco by an overspill of naked, elemental power. Light shone from the walls, veins of crystal and spreading lichen growth, it cast harsh, angled shadows and dazzled them after the darkness of the well.

She didn’t like enclosed spaces. She liked this, this distortion of the natural wild, even less.

Her hand tightened on her bow, gripping it against a sliding sweat of nervousness.

Ecko’s rasp was subdued, “Fuck. Your hydroponics guys went on a bender, huh.”

In front of her, he was as dark as a nightmare, as sharp as a blade. As he moved, the harsh shadows of the crazed canopy slipped over his cloak and the colours in it stirred and shifted as though the leaves blew in an unfelt wind.

Triq missed the breeze, the open sky.

She listened, straining to hear – something, anything. The stillness disturbed her – there were no creatures, no birds or sunlight. She could hear only her own heartbeat, the pounding of her pulse in her ears.

Redlock coughed again, wiped blood from his lip. The claw slice in his cheek was swelling to an angry scarlet.