Again, they circled.
Amethea said, “There’s something up there, I can’t see -”
“Just watch it. If it has a weapon, throw rocks at it! Make it keep its head down!”
The response distracted her for a moment too long. The beast came forward, now with the spear-point low. It caught her kneecap, twisting and sickening and impossibly painful. She staggered but kept her feet.
“Triq!” Amethea was moving. “You okay?”
“Stay there!” The scrape was a nasty one, warmth oozed down her shin. She needed to finish this damned thing - and fast.
Her right hand moved, a lunge towards its groin, but the motion was a feint - she got her left hand on the shaft of the spear. Using it to brace herself, she slammed one long boot round, hard, into the side of the thing’s skull. The impact jarred her knee, but the creature fell back, shaking its head.
But Triq still had hold of the spear. If its grip lessened, even for a moment -
Then her back went into spasm, dropping her like a rock.
In a moment of horrible clarity, she realised she’d pushed herself too far kicking down the door - her body simply couldn’t take it any more.
I’m too old for this, for Gods’ sakes!
A sharp stab of pain shot through her spine and flank. She was on her knees, frozen like some damned crippled elder and she absolutely could not move.
The creature stood over her, grinning, teeth gleaming.
It knew that she was helpless and it was drawing it out, enjoying it.
From somewhere behind her, Amethea was moving. With a loco disregard for anything resembling sense, the girl came past her as if she was going to tackle the beast herself...
...but she didn’t get time.
The creature dropped the spear completely and threw itself at Triq, bearing her to the stone floor, wrenching her back and making her spit shards of pain.
She hit the ground twisted, one leg caught under her, couldn’t move.
And it was over her like a lover, hard muscled and grinning, its breath fecund and steam-warm. The spirals on its skin writhed and it shifted its weight, fought to get her arms over her head.
Furious, she jack-knifed, not caring about the pain. She tried to free her leg, twist, throw the beast from her, hoped that Amethea would have the courage to pick the spear up and impale the damned thing clean through...
Then Triqueta realised what it wanted.
Dear Gods!
She’d felt this once before, this exact sensation, this odd pull of sensuousness and helplessness and loss and elation. This peculiar, nauseous drawing of her soul from her flesh.
Like Tarvi, the damn thing was stealing her
time.
Now, her fury edged on panic - she had no more damned time to spare. Tarvi had robbed her of returns, this thing would kill her, drain her to ash and bared bone, just like the damned skeletons in the cells. She thrashed, got one hand free, wrapped it around the beast’s neckthongs and twisted, knotting them round her knuckles and driving them upwards into its throat.
Make me a damned victim, will you?
Its eyes bulged, its grip lessened. The pulling sensation stopped and it shifted its weight - it was all Triq needed.
Amethea had the spear in her hands but hesitated, not really knowing where to stick it. Triq twisted out from under the creature, threw it down and sideways and shouted, “Thea! Now!
Now!”
With surprising strength, Amethea jabbed the spear at the creature’s flank.
It shrieked, but the tip glanced from a rib, gave it a nasty triangular tear. It reached out a hand, grappled to get its spear back but Amethea was too fast. With a shudder, she kicked it in the face.
Triqueta cheered, giving it the ululating warcry of the Banned - then realised that whatever was on the tower would hear her and come running.
They were out of time.
Literally.
Triq was on her feet in a moment, ignoring the sickening twinge in her back. She took the spear from Amethea and rammed it, point first, into the beast’s mouth, straight back into its skull.
Its hooves kicked, just for a moment, then it collapsed.
It didn’t move again.
* * *
Now, my estavah, my brother, now is the beginning of all things. With the creation we have before us, so do all things change.
We’ve done well.
The creature in Amal’s mind was stronger now, stronger than it had ever been. It was there, always there, teasing at the forefront of his thoughts. It caressed the barrier between them with sharp fingers of heat and impatience. It was starving, a predator stalking for lust and sustenance. It was all he could do to remember where it ended and he began.
Yet he remained academic, emotionless - he knew what would happen if he lost control. It craved freedom, and its hunger, its naked
want
, was too close to the surface for it to conceal.
The creature had no interest in his learning, his crafting, in building armies. The creature wanted its freedom - it wanted to master the destruction itself.
Ecko was the key to its cell, and its expectation burned fervent and silent and white-hot.
But as the creature had played Amal to bring Ecko to Aeona, so Amal had played it in return - without its strength and insight, he would not have the manifest skills for his crafting. Flex and stretch, their pact had always worked this way. They craved time, both of them. Amal craved it to further his own, to learn and study and craft; his creature craved it to feed its strength, to one day shatter Amal’s control and break free.
Their bargain had been a balance, and down through long returns, the delicate tilt and shift played on.
Now, that balance was to be tested. Ecko was its pivot, and Amal would not have liked to guess its outcome.
Yet he must retain control.
Peace,
he told the creature,
wait. There is knowledge to be gained, a new army to be crafted. New creatures and figments, new nightmares.
The creature snarled at him,
We will bring war!
I will give you your war, but in my own time. Wait!
It sneered at him but subsided, fading backwards, almost out of touch. Yet that sense of
want
remained, shimmering faint and hot and cruel. It teased him like the tip of a brand, like a noise in the background that he couldn’t quite shut out.
You will do what I say, my creature. Lore must be gathered, and used to greatest effect.
Amal walked slowly round the strange, mottle-skinned, fibre-muscled little man, his back held hard against the stone, his wrists and ankles caught motionless. The shadows of the gargoyles made the colours of his skin shift, almost as if they tried to stay out of the sun.
Tell me how to burn it down.
The little man’s eagerness felt uncannily like the creature’s own.
Ecko bared his teeth, said, “So? Let’s get this road on the show.”
He thinks as I do.
The creature was still there, coiling and rustling like laughter at the back of Amal’s thoughts.
Yes, yes, yes...
I said, you will wait!
Ecko clanked his wrists against the metal. “Gimme the sulphur or whatever. Let’s go.”
Amal chuckled. “The brimstone has served its purpose - we make new weapons here.” He smiled passionless, took Ecko’s chin in his hand and said, “Weapons of flesh.”
Ecko’s sneer grew. “Chrissakes, what d’you want? My user manual?”
I like this one.
The creature’s lingering humour was like greed.
He’s funny.
And then that laughter was suddenly gone, torn down, closed away, and it was surging forwards once more, as if Amal’s barriers and controls meant nothing.
Now open him.
The force of the command sent a sharp shock through the alchemist’s flesh, brought a sudden, hot taste to his mouth. In his head, the creature was rising, sudden and terrible, surging to full power. Destruction came with it, surrounded it, images of flame and crumbling walls, of tiny people fleeing hopeless.
Why play petty games, pieces of what must come? You will gain your greatest learning with your greatest action! We must bring war to the Varchinde now - we must rise now!
Wait!
Amal had long returns of control. He’d lived with the creature since the days of Tusien and now he strove to hold it back. He did not dare flinch, even for a moment. If he weakened, that pivot would turn, and it would tear him from the inside out.
The burning was inevitable, but it was also eventual. He would not relinquish the opportunity.
Amal was a master, creator of chearl, of nartuk, of bretir, of creatures half-human and of humans half-creature... understanding Ecko was imperative.
I must know it all!
Ecko was his life’s opportunity. He was insight, an ultimate creation. To win understanding of that lore, Amal was prepared to risk playing the creature’s game as far as it suited him to do so, to dare the creature’s hunger and greed.
Here on the table -
this
was the thing they both craved, the thing they’d lured to the midden city.
This node. This critical point.
Yes!
The creature was raging now, passion and power -anticipating its freedom and the devastation it would wreak.
Now! Now!
No! I am in control here!
Amal fought back, fought harder than he ever had -
There came a sudden cry from the courtyard below -unexpected, petrifying the striving as if it were suddenly set in stone. The voice was high and female, defiant and angry. For a moment, both Amal and the creature paused in disbelief - and then the alchemist cursed, with frustration and anger.
The creature fed on his emotions, revelled in them.
Birds on the parapet took flight, cawing in distress.
Amal spun, startled and furious and forcing the feelings away. He ran for the top of the long steps, his heart thundering, his blood playing tunes of fear. He had no staff here other than the crafted vialer; there was no one else in Aeona.
In his mind, his creature coiled and hissed. It liked his outrage and it made it stronger.
What is this?
Its voice was hotter now, eager.
What is this new thing that comes? That makes you so... angry?
Feet on the steps. Amal paused at their head, stared down at the small, bright figure that was racing upwards, at these crazed creatures that challenged the moment of his greatest breakthrough.
There was a woman, small and slight and strong and desert-blooded, eyes as bright as the yellow sun, the opal stones in her cheeks burning with indignation.
The creature was laughing at him now.
Her time is good, Amal. I remember this one, I remember her taste. Bring her, bring them both...
Amal heard its lust in his own pulse-beat, in the tattoo of alarm drumming in his skin.
Behind the desert woman came a second figure, younger, pale-haired and quite beautiful. The creature’s laughter rose, but Amal had paused as if the Count of Time himself had cupped his grey hands over the gargoyles on the tower...
Waiting.
Triqueta. Amethea.
Banished to the city’s cellars because he had no desire to craft with either of them. Their time may yet feed him - them -but these two had no further use.
They had seen him now, and they were running.
Bring them to me now. The Count of Time is upon us, Amal! Rhan rises; he comes to face me down and he comes with power. My old army rises, your creatures and creations from returns gone, locked into the Fhaveon stone. The city stands ready for my return!
The creature’s usual mental caress, its coaxing tones of “my brother, my estavah”, were gone, shredded in the gale of eagerness and elation.
My
return.
Not “our”.
No more games, Amal realised. No more tilt and shift.
In his chest, his heart seemed to freeze. The Count of Time held his hands still.
Waiting.
For that striving of soul against soul. For that tiny pivot that would turn either way, and affect the pattern of all things.
Then the two women reached the top of the steps.
Triqueta was upon Amal in an instant, her captured spear at his throat, words racing from her angered mouth.
“I know you. From the hanging, in the house in Amos - this some
game,
is it?” The word was an accusation. “What the rhez have you done with my friends?”
Amethea, behind her, stared at the table, at the crouching stone grotesques that watched it so carefully. Her hand was over her mouth, then she too, was spilling words. “What the rhez are you
doing
?”
Take them both!
The creature raged, rising and fighting against his flesh, his fetters of will that held it in place.
I am out of time, Amal! Take them both, take them -!
“Silence!” Amal barked the order, sending the creature reeling like a rolling weed, stopping both women in their tracks. “This is Aeona and this is my
home!
I say what goes here!” Triqueta aimed the spear at his chin. “I don’t think so. Where are my friends, you...”
He stepped back, with a taunting gesture that was almost a bow.
“Shit!” Ecko was twisting his body awkwardly on the stone table, trying to look round. “What the hell’re you doing?”
“Ecko!” Triqueta was running now, relieved, spear still in her hands. “I should slit your damned throat myself!”
“Fucking nick-of-time-rescue bullshit. Don’t you fucking
dare.
”
She stopped as if he’d slapped her. “What?”
Struggling to sit up, failing, Ecko snarled at both of them, a wraith of darkness and fire and savagery.
“Don’t you fucking
dare
come up here.” He twisted further against metal and stone. “You’re too fucking
late.
I’m done with this, all of it. I’m done doing what I’m told, being the good guy, saving the world. I’m gonna burn it all the fuck down, show Eliza just what she can do with her Virtual fucking
Rorschach!”