Ecko snorted, bitter and painful. “Couldn’t hurt me, huh?”
The alchemist laughed again, coughed flecks of blood. Then he said, as though his heart were broken. “But I lost... as well. Vahl never told me... he had another host...” He tried to haul himself upright, said, “I fear Fhaveon will fall. Now, come here to me, lady of the Banned. Help me to the parapet. I want to see the sea... before I die...”
Triqueta was shaking her head, trying to understand. She blinked at the man, and then came forwards to extend her hand.
Ecko tried to move, but Amethea was in the way, her hands all over him. He tried to call, to shout, to stop her...
No, Triq, don’t... for chrissakes, don’t!
Daemon or no daemon, Ecko didn’t trust that old fucker an-
There was a disturbance in the air.
Not like his vision of the man in the red robe - exultant and gloriating - the air on the tower was twisting in on itself, sickening. The sensation was familiar, somehow, something he’d seen or felt before - something that he knew deep in the darkest corners of his heart.
He struggled, useless, against his bonds. “Fuck’s
sake.”
He swore as Amethea blocked his view, still trying to look at his throat. His stomach was churning, he was chafing his wrists, hurting himself, but he had to see, to see...
He knew what this was.
But it couldn’t be.
No fucking way...
Amethea turned, her own startlement taking her hands from his throat. Ecko stared, barely daring to believe. He heard Triqueta cry out and stumble back, away from where the alchemist had fallen; heard the alchemist wheeze disappointment like it was the last breath of his life.
Then there was a soundless snap. There was a flicker of a reality that he knew, something he recognised like the smell of the River Thames on a Sunday morning.
Lugan?
Beyond hope, beyond time, beyond worlds, could it be...?
But it was not Lugan.
It was the Bard.
The gargoyles that leaned over them were frozen with impossibility. Ecko stared, the pain in his wrists and his throat forgotten. Amethea had fallen back against the table. Only the alchemist breathed, his wheezing laughter somehow framing the enormity of the moment.
The Bard had come
back.
Back from the dead; back from another world.
Ecko’s memories clamoured at him - this man was his conscience, his guide, his Jiminy Cricket. He could hear Triqueta saying,
He died believing in you
, hear Nivrotar’s need for the lore and learning of this man, for his guidance.
But this man was not Roderick of Avesyr, the Bard that Ecko remembered.
He was tall, grim. He was wearing a hoodie, for chrissakes, something so urban that it screamed out of place. His hair and face were covered. He looked like some stylised street-thug, angular and harsh, with eyes of stone. Something in Ecko’s head expected him to heft a crowbar with one hand and skin up with the other.
But that something was a whim, buried. The rest of his mind was fixated on the fucking
hoodie,
the label, the zipper. His own thoughts screamed at him, looping insane...
Where the fuck?
Amal was trying move, to push himself backwards out of the hooded man’s path, but the man paid him no attention.
He seemed unimpressed by the scene before him, took it in with a glance of cold eyes, showed no flicker of emotion or surprise.
Ecko’s head shrieked questions. Where was the tavern, Karine, Kale, the others? Had The Wanderer been in London, for chrissakes, how the fuck was that even possible?
The man strode across the tower like he owned it, boots slamming hard on the stone.
He said to Amethea, “Get out of the way.” His voice was -
Holy fucking shit on a stick.
His voice was
mechanical.
Amethea paled, but didn’t move.
Ecko gaped, utterly fucking dumbfounded by the masked figure that now stood over him, his shadow harsher than the fang-toothed gargoyles that blocked out the sun.
Roderick.
The name was ludicrous.
What the fuck did you
do?
He scrabbled to sit up, failed. His heatseeker was in overdrive - looking for flaws, excuses, anything to allow him denial. The man had a throat that seethed with warmth and colour and harm; a skull that offered twin cold plates, one down either side. And the work didn’t stop there - the heat fluctuations followed across his collarbones and shoulders, down into his chest. They retreated too far under his skin for Ecko to work out what they were, but...
Holy fucking shit.
There was only one person who’d do work like that.
“You went to Mom.” It was a whisper, laden with implication. “You went to
Mom.
Jesus fucking Harry Christ -
why?”
His mind staggered sideways like a backstreet drunk.
“And -
how?”
But the Bard didn’t answer. Instead, one gloved hand gripped the bloodied mess that was Ecko’s throat, thumb and fingers, ready for throttling. The other took the scarf from his face.
Pressure squeezing, threat and promise, he said, “This is over. No more drama, no more games. You tell me again, Ecko, how my world isn’t real. How it doesn’t matter. How you can play as you choose and damn everything to perish. Tell me again how you’re the only thing of importance.”
Tell me again, Ecko, how my world isn’t real.
He couldn’t process it, couldn’t begin to wrap his brain round what all this meant. The Wanderer had been in London - in
London,
for chrissakes! - a figment of Ecko’s program, a piece of his fucking imagination, had existed
outside.
He wanted to reverse away like Amal had done, wanted to escape the thought, what it meant. Wanted to shriek denial of the man’s presence, of what Mom had done to him. He clanked against the restraints, struggled against the man’s grip, panicked - he was looking for the exit, the hole in reality, the shimmering-gate-through-time, the whatever-the-fuck-it-was, but there was nothing there.
What the fuck?
He spluttered, still twisting against the metal clasps and unable to gather his shattered wits. “You... but...
shit!
You
died!
What the fuck happened to you? How...?”
The man’s face was thin, now, pale and hard. His amethyst eyes were like chips of gemstone, cold. There was no mercy in his expression, none of the humour and empathy that Roderick had offered to those around him - there was only the hand across Ecko’s throat.
Whatever Mom had done to him, it had reft him of his sanity, his humanity. It had fractured his soul - just as it had fractured Ecko’s before him.
What was the word they used?
Estavah
, closer than brother.
But brother or not, this time, Ecko feared that he really did face his own death.
That not only had the program failed, but that it would take him with it.
The shouting began.
Trapped in the darkness and the rich, sweet scents of the herbery, the young Lord Foundersdaughter and the old scribe listened to the rise of fury in Fhaveon.
Selana was sobbing, Mael could hear her gulp and sniffle. He didn’t blame her for a minute, poor child had been through the rhez, but he restrained the urge to pat her awkwardly on her shoulder.
She was afraid, and out of her depth, and the release was good. Frankly, he could have sniffled a bit himself.
Get up, you fool.
But there was no time for fear - he could hear Saravin as clearly as if the big warrior was beside him, hulking and hairy, there in the dark.
Get up and get on with it!
Sometimes,
Mael figured,
you have to do these things -simply because there’s no one else left.
He got up.
Selana shifted, responding to his movement, but he said nothing. Instead, he stood still in the darkness, fighting down his rising panic to listen, turning his head and feeling the air, trying to orient himself. They’d done this as ’prentices - more returns ago than he cared to count - drawn lots and then arranged to get locked in so they could access certain protected substances. And if Mael hadn’t lost his damned mind completely...
He remembered. That tiny filter of light coming from a chink in the stone - it was barely more than a figment, but it gave him direction.
That
way.
He picked his way across the floor, counting steps, his hands stretched in front of him like a sleepwalker’s. Eight paces, kicking with his toes as he went, and he found the wall. Two sideways, and there was the old scar in the stonework. Three handspans down...
...and
that
was the axis point.
He couldn’t remember who had found this - a stone idiosyncrasy that lurked here unremembered and unseen. The loose piece of wall weighed more than Mael could shift - more than Saravin could have shifted for that matter - but had been crafted with such skill that a touch in the right place and it swung outwards like a door into the very back of the hospice garden.
When it swung closed the fit would be almost flawless.
The spreading arc of light touched Selana as she turned, eyes wide and face streaked and sparkling.
“You moved the
wall?”
she said.
Mael allowed himself a chuckle. “Tekissari built the hospice, my Lord. Thank your forefathers, and my misspent youth, and let’s get out of here. And quietly!”
Scrubbing at her face, Selana scrabbled to her feet. As she did so, the rush of angry noise came again, startling both of them - it was a rising crescendo of outrage, a tide of wrath on its way to crash against the walls of the higher city.
They could hear hooves, shouted orders, the clatter of weapons. From somewhere, a single voice - Phylos possibly -fought for control. The tone was strident, demanding discipline and obedience.
Dear Gods.
A blossom of very real fear grew in Mael’s heart. For all their bravery, they were an old man and a young girl, facing streets now probably streaked with the angry, the righteous and the violent. How they were supposed to win through this...
Stop moaning, you old fool, and move!
The scents of the herbery brought flickers of his youth, memories of ’prentice antics and personal rebellion.
Just who are you calling old, you galumphing great oaf? Call yourself a warrior?
Mael felt a sudden rush of pure nostalgic wickedness, allowed himself a grin. Feeling younger than he’d done in returns, he said, “Come on!” His heart thumping, he caught the girl’s sleeve and they ran together through the tiny and overgrown end of the garden, stingers biting at them as they went. Then they rounded into the gardens proper, neat rows of planted flowers, dancing statues that spat water in perfect arcs.
Mael ducked them into a side-arch, said, “We have to stop this, my Lord...” He drew a breath. “We’ve got to go out there.”
“Out there?” Selana gawked at him. “You’re crazed!”
From somewhere there was a taint of smoke, cries, flecks of ash.
Mael swallowed, aware that he must be pale as a corpse.
“You gave a brave speech earlier, Selana.” He used her name deliberately, a confrontation. “I’m hoping you meant it. We’re going to get your uncle and we’re going to open the doors to the hospice. And then, we’re going to get you into the palace.”
She drew a deep breath, said, “Okay. Okay. I suppose... we can go round to the back door. Into the kitchen.”
Mael nodded.
Good girl.
“Then we’re going up to that balcony to stop Phylos.”
Somehow.
He didn’t need to add it to the end of the statement.
* * *
It had started in the tithehalls and the marketplaces with the seizures and demands, with the casual brutality of the soldiery. With the overturning of stalls, and the breaking and burning of stock. With small knots of outrage, and a gradual rising of voices that would take no more.
It had started in the lower streets of the city, with those who’d heard the words of Fletcher Wyll, with those whose companions had been dragged away to face the wrath of the Justicar. With the Lord city’s roadways being patrolled by things inhuman, beasts of hoof and horn with the bodies of men, and skin woven with spirals of seething ink. With the kicking down of doors and the accusations that followed; with neighbours dragged, bleeding, from their hearths and families. It had started as the people of the city realised their homes were not safe and that their anger was greater than their fear.
It had started the moment a victim had hit back.
It might have been a stone, a thrown pottery carafe, an explosion of shards; it might have been a knife between the ribs, a flash of flame, or a rocklight raised in anger and brought down shattering-hard. Whatever that first spark, it caught to sudden light and the blaze that spread from it was pure rage.
Under her perfect skin, Fhaveon had been simmering with it.
Rage at the blight, at the people’s helplessness, at the soldiers’ brutality. Rage from traders and craftsmen denied their livelihoods, from warriors who could express themselves no other way. Rage from brewers and bookkeepers who had seen their tallies tumble and had taken a rope across the back for it.
Now, that rage had an outlet. Fhaveon’s people swarmed the streets, the squares, resentment and righteousness giving them strength and determination. They gripped tight whatever weapons they had - staves, belt-blades and woodsman’s axes -and as they moved onwards so they became more, so their shout was heard further, and so their might and number increased.
They raided the hoarded stockpiles, tearing down the guards from their duty and wresting away their weapons. They took everything they could and then torched what remained. They burned out of indignation, teaching the city a lesson, firing stores rather than letting Fhaveon’s rulers keep them - and then they watched defiant as the sparks and smoke rose into the autumn sky.