by Danie Ware
She spoke again, with a faint glitter of edge. “I asked you a question.”
He bared black teeth. “What, your spies on vacation?”
“Maybe I’m recruiting.”
“You can’t afford me.”
“Look around you.” In her pale face, her eyes were dark as bruises, but a flash of passion led his gaze to frescoes glimpsed between pillars, champions battling monsters, each panel worn to a blur by years without number. She ran long fingers over the closest, the battle-scene that decorated the font-side behind her. “Do you know these legends?”
“How the hell would I -?”
“Nor does anyone else.”
The finality in her tone floored him; she was playing battle-chess with his head and he’d no fucking clue where she was going with this. It was unbalancing, deliberate, and it was pissing him off.
She said, “This mounted and noble warrior that spears this great beast, sheds its blood to feed the trees... Whatever the saga, it is long since forgotten.”
“Chrissakes, I came for weapons, not art. Willya quit playin’ silly fuckers and just show me this... knife - whatever the hell it is?”
Her smile flickered. Somehow, his impatience meant he’d lost a round. He bridled, pissed, then reminded himself that he didn’t fucking care anyway. He was only playing ’til he found the exit.
Made the exit.
Tore a big goddamn hole in the side of reality.
Oh yeah, he’d come for weapons all right...
Nivrotar pushed her long shimmer of hair behind one perfect white ear.
“Fhaveon is falling, Ecko; Rhan is gone. The Merchant Master Phylos, controller of the Varchinde’s trade, now rules the city’s Lord. He’s taken the Council of Nine and his forces consolidate, even now. Do you know what this means?”
“You need an assassin?”
Her smile deepened for a moment, genuinely amused.
“A good theory - though sadly, something more insidious would just take his place. No, whatever else Phylos may be, he’s obvious. His moves are brutal and easy to anticipate.” She shrugged, twisted a strand of pure black hair round her finger in an oddly coquettish gesture, smiling still. “Ecko... as Phylos rises, so the Varchinde falters. We tumble towards the little death of winter, and the loss of the Great Fayre will critically damage our trade - will cause great harm, and widespread misery. The cycle cannot turn without its hub. My goods cannot travel inland without their redistribution point, their secure destination -and without my goods outgoing, their balance does not return here to me, and to my people. Do you understand our culture well enough to ken what this will do? There will be strife, and shortage, and I mislike that Phylos will turn these things to his advantage, and use them to spread his power beyond Fhaveon. Perchance, had he controlled Roviarath also, the outcome would have still been more fearsome - but the loss of the Fayre is terror enough for now.” Somewhere above her, there were glass panes in the ceiling and the light flickered as feet ran over them. “All of this, and there are these... rumours... of rot in the grass.” Distantly, there were shouts. “Tell me, do you believe CityWarden Larred Jade can rebuild the Great Fayre?”
Ecko shrugged.
“Why the hell you askin’ me this shit? I’m a sociologist now? An advisor? Ask Triq, ask Thea - they know how your trade-whosit works. I came here for one reason, and if you don’t have it, then I’m gone.” He turned his back on her, took a step across the stone.
“Where, Ecko?” She made no move, her tone was amused. “Where is it that you’re going?”
Where is it that you’re going?
The question picked him up, spun him, threw him down, pinned him to the shining floor as neatly as a nailgun through each palm.
Keep sulking, Ecko.
Nivrotar was watching him, intent and quiet, one white finger idly caressing dark lips. She still had that faint smile, as if she could see his thoughts, see the wheels turning.
He quelled a sudden and powerful urge to lash out, to goad some other reaction from her - hell, if he’d wanted to know where that Traitor’s Gate was, now looked like a re-aal fine time to ask...
He said, “D’you have this blade, or not?”
Studying him, she raised her voice and called. A small door opened in the crypt’s far side; she barked brief orders at a servitor and the figure withdrew, closing the door. Then she focused back on Ecko as if she’d rip him to gobbets.
With a flicker almost too fast to follow, there was a resin gleam of terhnwood in her hand.
You fucking touch me with that, you’ll be swimmin’ through that gate yourself...
But she offered it to him hilt-first.
He glanced, didn’t take it. He was still half-expecting her to manifest as some giant demon mcnasty, some squawking harpy, any fucking second... She stood tall and cold, her expression clouded with storm.
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” The question was a slap. “Take the blade.”
“Or you’ll do what? Stick me with it?”
For a moment, he thought she’d move, she’d surge forwards and bury the thing in his throat. His adrenaline kicked, ready to hit back, to throw her down and deal with whatever grunts came through the side-door - but she held herself absolutely still as if her control was pure ice.
She said, “The grass tells me many things - I had heard, felt, a taint in its autumn but the message that you gave me...” She paused, then said again, “Take the blade.”
This time, he looked, his targeters crossing instinctually. As he realised what he was looking at, his telos spun for more detail, and his hand was moving - he was raising the thing to the light like it was fucking Excalibur or something, studying the ruin of resin and fibre.
Confused, he blinked back to normal focus and looked at the Lord.
She said softly, “What do you see?”
“Look, I dunno shit about your terhnwo-”
“Tell me!” It was a bark, cold as a slap.
His telos spun back, studying the intricate micro-patterns of the crafted resin, the stilled writhe of the fibres that gave the weapon rigidity and shape. “It’s gotta mark, like a maker’s mark.”
“All crafters have one - it’s used to tally movements and trade -”
“Yeah whatever, whole thing’s rotted as... holy shit.”
“What do you see?” Nivrotar’s question was a thrum, intense.
“It’s growing.” Ecko’s answer was a fragment of honest surprise. “I can fucking see... Shit, it’s fucking growing!” He could actually watch it. The fibre was budding, tiny but unmistakable. The movement was minute, he could only see it with his oculars, but surely... “Look, green stuff not my thing, didn’t even smoke it in college - but this shit’s all the fuck wrong.” He was fascinated, watching the tiniest of nano-movements, the minuscule thrust of new life - and yet something about it didn’t feel healthy, it felt like it was rubbing against the palm of his hand, somehow, as if the fibres on the inside were struggling to get out...
He shuddered, and he wasn’t even sure why.
He wanted to ask her what the hell it was - but the question was a hooks, a lure, a step down that path he was still refusing to take.
Keep sulking.
Instead, he spun the blade in his hand, the movements inhumanly fast, then stood the thing on its point on the tip of his index finger.
“So. You got zombie plant life - not the zombies I was lookin’ for, but hey. What the hell does it prove?”
She reached out and took the blade from his finger.
“Ecko - blight in the grass will be fatal, to our life and our culture, our farmlands and our cities. Blight in the terhnwood will gut us like esphen, leave us gasping until we perish. If I cannot offer my crop, Amos will not only have no terhnwood, she will have no stone, no wood. And if I cannot trade with my farmlands, she will have no food - unless I choose to take it by force. And if the grass also perishes...”
Ecko’s ears were humming, tinnitus and
adrenaline and rising horror.
Scouting through garbage to find out where the hell he went from here.
Because we did this!
“No, you can’t guilt-trip me like this, goddammit. There’s no fucking way...”
But Nivrotar was still speaking. “My eyes and ears in Fhaveon tell me Phylos tightens the grip of the Cartel upon the people. I knew the city was stockpiling - now I know why. And if he can turn this blight, too, to work for him...”
“Chrissakes.” From nowhere, memories of Tarvi squirmed, and Pareus burning and dying. He died believing in you. “You’re not gonna yank my fuckin’ chain with this...”
The Lord ignored him. “Without Rhan, without Roderick, without the Great Fayre, and now without the very grass, the very terhnwood, the basic things that sustain us... Ecko, Phylos is up to something - just as Fhaveon controls most of the Varchinde’s terhnwood, so she also trains and distributes almost all of our military... She holds all the dice, Ecko, and she weights them in her favour.”
The humming in his ears rose. He could hear the Bard in her voice, see his stance in her movements, in the colours of her hair and skin.
No, you can’t make me care about this shit, you can’t make me...!
She took a step forwards, lowered herself gracefully to one knee and placed a long white hand on his cheek.
“Ecko,” she said. “You’re the only one left. Without you, the Powerflux falters and the world will die.”
He wanted to rage at her - so fucking what? - but he saw the plains seeping and rotting and raw, saw the wide grass dead and the soil barren, saw the cities stark and ruinous against the sky. He saw forces, marching and dying, heard voices lorn and lost.
The picture cut him like a hard blade, deep and into his heart.
He felt responsible. Guilty. Afraid.
He hurt.
Cared.
Then his savagery returned with a rush, reactionary and furious. No, I don’t care, I don’t care! It’s a fucking desktop wallpaper, no more - you can’t make me care about a picture!
Daaance, Ecko...
He was caught, cornered, just as neatly as if he’d been tied up while the bad guy outlined his plans to blow up the world.
He’d been cornered by the very sensations he’d had Mom peel from his body, tear from his mind. By emotions he’d denied, buried, surrendered, rejected, so many years before...
And the Lord Nivrotar didn’t give two shits about his personal fucking drama.
He couldn’t say yes, wouldn’t say no, had no idea which way he would fall. Both sides yawned at him, a tumble into a decision he could never undo.
In an effort to cling to the edge, to buy time, space, rescue, he said, “Christ, all your speechifyin’, you even remind me of the fuckin’ Bard. What’re you anyway, his mom?”
He was poised for her comeback - wanting her to spring for him, needing the outlet. His adrenals were kicked - ready for anger, violence, the call for palace guards to pike-spit him and stick his head on a bridge somewhere... and he was utterly thrown when she laughed aloud, her humour ringing from the stone vaults of the ceiling.
“His mother?”
Ecko stared, baffled. His adrenaline leaked out of him like piss down his leg.
Her glowering darkness gone, she bore a smile on her face that was almost girlish.
“I’m Tundran-born, Ecko, though not of his blood.” Her laughter brought light and life to her pale skin, sunshine on snow. “Like Roderick, I seek lore and preserve what parts of my culture I may.”
Damn the woman and her fucking mood-swings, she was like running on rubble - he’d no clue where she’d trip him. He was shaky now, he’d so been anticipating the confrontation, the revelation, the Epic Truth That Would Make Him Change His Mind... Hell, she’d make a great case-study supporting the use of Doctor Slater Grey’s little magic tablets.
“What the hell is so funny?”
“You are - I should keep you here, my Dark Jester.” Her eyes flashed with what might’ve been mischief. “Tundran culture made an error, Ecko, many returns ago. We’re long-lived, but a slowly diminishing people - fewer children in every generation, and fewer of those surviving. We cling. Perchance that’s why Roderick hoards his knowledge with such obsession.”
“An’ I thought he was jus’ getting out of doin’ the real work.”
“Don’t be naïve.” The Lord’s smile vanished, sunshine behind a cloud. “I know how long he waited for hope, clung to his faith alone - and I know how much your arrival meant to him.” Her passion was rising, there were shades of deep colour in her cheeks. Her voice was layered with frost and terror and need. “If we’ve lost him, Ecko, really lost him...”
Lost him, really lost him.
“You’re doomed, I get it already.” His rasp hacked into her chill, shattered it. “But I don’t do guilt trips. If he’s that fuckin’ critical, you find him yourself. Send your spies. Find Rhan. Find the Pevensie kids and crown them all king. You can’t make me...”
For a moment her expression darkened, eyes like thunderclouds, like the threat of snow. Then her face set into an icy, humourless smile.
“You will walk away?”
Yes. No.
Fuck!
“Try an’ stop me.” The words were reflex. His targeters twitched, adrenals shivered: he was ready to dart for the stone stairs to the courtyard above - or to crush her white throat with a foot if she came for him.
But the cold held her where she was. She said only, “I am the Lord of Amos, and if I say so, you will obey me in word and deed and thought. Yet I would rather you made that choice for yourself. Listen to me, Ecko, and realise: by just standing with me, my enemies are yours. In the friendship of the Bard, you have secured your own death. In the thwarting of Maugrim and ensuring the survival of Roviarath you have angered foes far more dangerous than simply Phylos the Merchant Master. And those enemies will not forgive you - from them, you cannot choose to walk. They will follow you, hunt you and catch you - and your defiance will mean nothing. We are together - we have enemies wherever we look and we must face the unravelling of our culture as well as fight to preserve it. You stand with me Ecko, not because I choose it and not because you do - but because everything else that stands, stands against us.” She rested her cold hand on his cheek, the colour of her skin seeping into his own. “I will not prevent you from walking. But if you do, I will not help you when they find you.”
“If they kill me,” Ecko said, his voice as soft as rust, “you, Phylos, the grass, all of this, ceases to exist.”
“And what in the world,” her smile was gentle, dangerous, “makes you think they’ll just kill you? There are more unpleasant ways to teach people obedience.”
That one had him thinking for a very long time.
6: MWENAR AMOS
Resisting the urge to blow on her chilled hands, Amethea watched the old crafthouse.
Down beside her in a tangle of overgrown garden, Triqueta was motionless, one blade drawn and the beginnings of a smile flickering at the corner of her mouth. It was cold, the sky was bright and clear, but Triq’s desert skin looked warmed from the core of her soul. Her breath plumed in the crisp air.
Triq watched the sprawl of the house for a moment longer, then shook her head, the stones in her cheeks glittering.
The building was deserted.
Before them, mist and creeper clung to the cracked flagstones. It was barely the birth of the sun and the air was still cold, the night’s chill lingering. They were a way from the city’s heart, here; it was quiet, and an old wall separated them from the outer streets. Amethea watched every direction at once, starting with every stirring of a leaf.
The quiet was disconcerting, but Triqueta didn’t seem to care.
Amethea suppressed a shiver.
The crafthouse was a long, low shadow, and it clearly hadn’t been used in returns. It was half tumbledown, its empty windows Kartian-dark, hiding nameless fears. Once, this place would have
been a craftmaster’s home and workplace - one of the single most important buildings in the city. There would have been a workshop here, and pure liquid terhnwood resin of the highest quality, brought straight from the plantation, braids of treated, dried fibres. The craftmaster would have had his moulds and ovens here, and from his skill would have come the finest weapons and ornamentation that the city could offer in trade - sigil-marked items that would travel from trader to merchant, merchant to bazaar, bazaar back to trader, all across the Varchinde.
And in return, he would have been one of the most privileged citizens of the city.
Now, there was nothing. Only his long cellars, empty and lined in stone.
Saint and Goddess, like I haven’t had enough of stone rooms! Amethea thought, and the faint breeze sighed again; enough to stir the mist and scuttle the fallen leaves like insects about her boots. The cold was stiffening her knees.
Frankly, she’d rather be fighting to prevent poor demented Ress from clawing his own eyes out than here, flexing her stiff fingers and trying to stop herself from throwing up from sheer nervousness. She’d run scout for Vilsara in Xenok many times, but this?
This was not the same beast at all. They were following the craftmark on the blade they’d been given in the tavern - the whole thing was creeping her skin, and frankly, she wanted to be back behind the safety of the high palace wall.
Any wall. Any wall but this one.
But the old crafthouse was silent, its shutters closed and sagging, its heavy wooden door sealed.
Figments of white mist gibbered laughter in her head.
Stop that!
She swallowed, found her mouth was too dry and smothered a sudden cough, a plume of pale breath rising like steam. As she did so, Triq moved as though released, swift and almost soundless, easing quickly and carefully across the weed-edged flags.
Triq had drawn her second blade, held them both folded back along her wrists. Amethea drew her own little belt-blade and watched her friend’s progress.
Any moment now, she thought, the attack, the ambush, the monster...
Nothing happened.