This Rage of Echoes
Page 31
‘Are all the Echomen dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘What will happen to Kirk and Madeline?’
‘Whatever infected them is leaving their bodies. Look at the backs of their hands. The scar’s gone.’ I showed them my own Y-shaped scar that wouldn’t leave me so easily. ‘They’re reverting back to who they were.’
‘Has the change stopped now?’
‘Yes, I’m sure of it. The epidemic is over. There is, for the want of a better word, an agency that has intervened. It won’t allow any more people to be transformed.’
Madeline frowned. ‘What is this agency? Are you saying something like an angel?’
‘Life-forms have immune systems to protect them. The universe has, too. Otherwise so many bad things would happen chaos would run out of control and destroy everything.’
Ulric regarded the mound of corpses just a hundred yards from us. ‘What happened to them? Why did they all die so suddenly?’
One of the commandos added, ‘You were stood talking to the guy with the bite hole in his face and they all just flopped down.’
So my friends hadn’t seen the sun darken, or me and the Echomen vanish from the face of the Earth for what seemed to be a significant period of time. Then Natsaf-Ty, or the thing, he symbolizes has many talents. ‘The Echomen simply weren’t viable. Their own biology couldn’t sustain them.’
Ulric gave one of his rare grins. ‘Then this is a happy ending?’
‘Oh, yes.’ I nodded. ‘This is a very, very happy ending.’
Remember what I told you half a page ago? When I stated that the first three questions asked of me were the ones I’d answer truthfully? Even as we walked away from that little valley of death the cluster of neurons inside my head which had a propensity for showing me Natsaf-Ty, revealed a figure standing beside the road. It seemed for a moment I saw the phantom of the man with the hole in his face. He fixed me with accusing eyes as his voice reached me like a breeze sighing through leaves on a tree: ‘Why are you so sure you haven’t built a bridge between worlds? Listen to me, Mason Konrad, you invited Death on to the Earth. He will want something in return; you are in his debt, remember?’ Then the shadow that wore my face evaporated before the brilliance of the sun.
‘It’s over,’ I told them. Madeline smiled at me as we walked by banks of wild flowers. ‘We’re going to be all right.’
My breath caught in my chest as I waited for a lightning bolt to crash from the blue sky and turn me to ashes. I watched the meadows in case the thing I called Natsaf-Ty arrived with millions of his kind to lurk redly amongst the grass until they decided to make their move against humankind.
But no killing lightning strike. No invasion of ruddy figures. So maybe the Echoman’s spiteful prophecy of me, Mason Konrad, being the cause of a global catastrophe was merely the last bullet in his arsenal. One last vindictive shot before he ceased to be.
Hey, I survived. My name is Mason Konrad. This is me. The real deal. The genuine article. Today is the start of my new life. So, until that dusty, red gentleman tells me otherwise this isn’t really the end. I go on to face my future, whatever that will be, under the same skies and stars as you.
Copyright
© Simon Clark 2008
First published in Great Britain 2008
This edition 2012
ISBN 978 0 7198 0624 7 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7198 0625 4 (mobi)
ISBN 978 0 7198 0636 1 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7090 8533 1 (print)
Robert Hale Limited
Clerkenwell House
Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.halebooks.com
The right of Simon Clark to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988