Ecko Endgame

by Danie Ware

  “Yeah,” he muttered aloud, “Fuckin’ moss.”

  When he opened his eyes to look down, though, he ran right out of sensible thoughts.

  “Bloody ’ell!”

  Below him, spread out like some artist’s map, was a vista of pure impossibility, immense beyond words. It was a vision, land and time and distance that robbed him of breath and left him coughing all over again. It was plains and rivers and clouds, tiny points of cities, long roadways that unrolled between them. It was distances vast, all of it afire with the setting of the sun. It was…

  It was fucking magick.

  Okay, so he was still tripping his arse off, he knew that. Crystal trees and two moons, for fuck’s sake, you didn’t tell him that shit was anything normal. He’d been able to feel it, all through the pale trees and up the toiling, zigzag path – soon now, reality would spike its cold, grey fingers into this… whatever the hell it was. Christ, he’d done his share of psychotropics, once upon a time, and he knew how the story went.

  Like that time when—

  It was then that the insight really hit him: the broken cot, the memories of his youth. From the days when they could ride as they wanted, racing through derelict warehouses, dropping LSD, mescaline, peyote, whatever they could score. Watching Moorcockian colours rippling fantastic in shattered urban walls. He remembered it so clearly – the insight, the wonder, the worlds they’d seen and built and craved – and he remembered what it felt like as those worlds came apart. As they thinned to two dimensions, burned through, became bleak and chill as a pencil drawing.

  As reality manifested once more.

  Comedown.

  Like the little cot, those broken walls of memory were pure dereliction.

  Standing there, cold wind in his face, he looked at the dream spread in front of him, its glow now fading as the sun sank.

  And then he saw smoke.

  It wasn’t ordinary smoke: it rose briefly white, then billowed into a writhe of black and grey and tan. Sparks danced upwards into the darkening sky. And the smell…

  Rising to the pass where he stood, it was nauseating and sweet, putrid and steaky. It reminded him of childhood barbeques, or of an old leather being cremated on a fire. More echoes – once you’d smelled the stench of decomposing bodies burning, you never, ever forgot it.

  Bring on the zombies…

  At the meaty reek, his belly rumbled, making him gag. He crouched down by the mossy side of the empty cot, one hand over his nose. Focusing his telescopics, he steadied himself against the momentary head-spin and began to scan the land below.

  He needed Fuller, for fuck’s sake, needed Collator to tell him what the hell was going on. And he needed a weapon – he wasn’t sure he wanted to face Dusk of the Living Dead with only his bare hands…

  Arse, bollocks and shite!

  The fire was close – less than two klicks away, east down the pass – and it was gutting a cot rather bigger and newer than the one beside him. It was hard to see through the smoke and the heat, but the whole place was apparently ablaze, crops, outbuildings and all. There was at least one figure standing there watching it burn.

  Ecko?

  The thought made him lean forwards, instinctively trying to see more clearly, but the figure was heavily built, bulky-shouldered, and watchful, neither Ecko nor zombie. Lugan was too far away to hear it if it spoke, but he could see it as it turned, its mouth and nose covered, and its forehead etched with… were those scars deliberate? They were more like tattoos, consciously curving and artistic.

  They writhed in the heat-shimmer.

  Don’t tell me this trip’s gonna turn nasty before the end…

  He swallowed bile, tried not to breathe. He searched his pocket for the dog-end he knew wasn’t there. Combing his telos across the site, strip after strip, he found billowing flame and thick, dark smoke, then more figures, faces covered, several of them bearing uplifted flambeaux.

  Looking further, he found their mounts – ugly, slope-backed things that resembled camels more than horses – picketed a distance upwind. He supposed he ought to get his arse down there and nick one, saddlebags and all.

  Yeah, an’ then what?

  The thought made him chuckle.

  ’Alf a tonne of muscle an’ a brain the size of a lug-nut? Even if it don’t turn into a giant octopus ’alfway down the road, you’re pullin’ my bleedin’ chain. I ain’t ridin’ nothin’ without an engine.

  The picketed creatures nosed the grassless ground, uncaring of his opinion.

  Motionless, he watched.

  After a time, the masked arsonists threw their torches into the blaze. Leaving the fire, they remounted, formed up into a loose gang. He watched them ride away, turning to shout gleefully at one another with faces now exposed and bad teeth bared in laughter. Only one of them had the distinctive scarring, and her face was covered with it, wrought with careful gouges.

  Ritual?

  Body art?

  Self-’arm?

  They turned behind a spur of land, and he lost them from view.

  Disturbingly loud, his belly grumbled again.

  Great. Now what?

  Disappointingly, perhaps, no giant octopuses emerged, the sky didn’t erupt with tentacles. The smoke continued to rise and the sun continued to sink, and the clouds glowed, striped with lavender and gold. Lugan sighed.

  Onwards it is, then.

  His exploration of the ruined cot showed him neither baccy nor food, so he picked up a decent, heavy length of old beam, and wondered if he could make the blaze before full dark.

  The sun faded slowly from the plainland, and Lugan used the firelight to lead him through the gathering dusk.

  * * *

  The gang hadn’t left much.

  On his half-clamber, half-skid down the pass, Lugan had been very conscious of leaving the sun behind him, had felt the mountains’ darkness creeping, shadows down the slope.

  He’d had bad trips before, and had no fucking intention of letting this one go off the rails.

  Instead, he tried to clear his thinking, made an effort to focus – he found himself reflexively asking Fuller to detail the threat. He needed the info-feed, the background, the scans for local populace and security and infrastructure. He needed Ecko to run scout, needed his old Remington, a decent blade, a drone, an aircar with miniguns whirring – hell, don’t do this shit by halves – he needed the whole kit an’ bleedin’ caboodle. The absence of urban sprawl he could do, he’d been enough time on the road to understand space, but the lack of foreknowledge? Right now, he’d settle for a map.

  The info-vacuum was trippy in itself, messing with his head.

  Christ almighty. Lugan searched his pocket for a dog-end, swore. Fuller and maps and miniguns were a world away, explain it however you fucking liked. He’d got himself and the shit in his pockets, and he’d better get on with it.

  At least it meant the baccy craving was only in his head.

  As careful as he could, he eased closer, boots scrunching. He paused as he felt the whack of heat, scanned the rising shimmer.

  No zombies, no gang, no traumatised and fleeing civilians.

  No security. No fire services.

  No fast-response, absolutely bloody nothing.

  He raised an arm to shield his face. The wavering of the air made the whole thing completely unreal.

  Realising he was sweating, he opened the zip of his jacket. His mouth was dry, tasted like ash. He knew he was jittery – if he didn’t get a roll-up soon he was gonna—

  Do what, pillock? What you gonna do?

  He could see more clearly now – the place was larger than the cot he’d left behind. It was almost a hamlet, nestled right up here in the cleavage of the mountains. Drystone walls marked simple farming; there was a tiny storehouse, a single standing stone, a scatter of still-burning huts…

  As he tried to count them, one collapsed in a shower of sparks.

  Nothing else moved.

  Baffled now, increasi
ngly freaked and wary of the heat in the stonework, he began a circuit – seeking movement, outbuildings, anything that might’ve escaped.

  And slowly he began to understand that something, somewhere, was very badly fucked up.

  Okay, so Lugan’d torched stuff a time or two in his life – though he usually used more petrol. When the corporations’ drones didn’t put out the fires, the flames spread swiftly, gobbling their way downwind to take out entire warehouse units, black market stock, squatters, whatever was necessary. As problem-solving went, it was a quick fix.

  If you knew what you were doing.

  Downwind here, the land was empty – no crops, woods, trees, or fences – and the fire was suffocating for lack of fuel. As Lugan completed his circuit, though, he realised the clearance hadn’t been deliberate.

  This farmstead – whatever the hell it was – had no life surrounding it at all.

  What?

  Sweating profusely now, conscious of his own stink, Lugan paused on a slight rise. This whole thing was becoming more fucked up by the moment. Fuller’s absence was loud as a shout. Informationless, feeling a rising, formless anxiety, he turned to look round him properly, tuning his oculars to see through the failing light.

  To see something – anything! – that would tell him what the hell was going on.

  And slowly, Lugan began to understand that everything, all round him, as far as he could see, was barren. Bereft of life. Crops and forests, grasses and heathers – everything was dead. Brown and shrivelled, rotten against cracked soil.

  Holy fuckin’ mother of God.

  As his understanding grew, so his heart shrank in his chest and he stared in disbelief, in rising panic. His vision expanded further, desperate; it roved wider, looked for life, for something still moving. The horror in him swelled, suffocating, leaving him choked and breathless. In the pass, the sun had been in his eyes; now, he could see clearly, and he was surrounded by just…

  Nothing.

  By emptiness, as far as he could see.

  Fuller, mate, if you can hear me, I wanna wake the fuck up right now…

  The incredible vista he’d seen was an illusion, a lure. This was the worst bastard trip of his entire life.

  Fuller…?

  But Fuller couldn’t hear him. Collator couldn’t find him.

  He was still tripping, and he had no control.

  No way out.

  Oh no you don’t. This ain’t gonna scare me…

  One hand closed over the little red light, the only thing he trusted. The other gripped the end of his beam, as if he needed to swing it at something, to smash and to smash, to break his way through and out the other side, to let it all go in violence…

  Yeah, bring on the zombies!

  But the mountains’ swelling foothills were carpeted only in twisted stumps as far as he could see.

  Somewhere he remembered the Bard, his reaction to Mom – his craving for information.

  And the price he’d paid to get it.

  Standing on the rise, like some last surviving icon of humanity, Lugan looked in the direction the gang had gone. They’d probably stopped not far away.

  And whether they’d turn into Cthulhu or not, he was going to get some fucking answers.

  * * *

  They didn’t turn into Cthulhu, or anything else.

  Lugan made no attempt to sneak up on them – like he could – instead he walked in there as if he owned the joint. The tethered beasties snorted at his bootsteps, and the gang was on its feet as he reached their circle of firelight.

  He addressed the woman with the scars, the only one who remained sitting, pointing his wooden beam straight at her.

  “Ade Eastermann, pleased t’meetcha. And you’re gonna tell me where the ’ell I am.”

  They surrounded him, hands on clubs and cudgels with the ease of people who knew how to use them. No blades, no firearms. Fuller or no Fuller, Lugan wasn’t going to have too much trouble guessing their chosen profession.

  They sneered at him.

  “What we got here, then?”

  “Where the rhez did you spring from?”

  “Put the tree down, sunshine.”

  There were five of them, all men of various builds, none of them as big as he was. They were dressed like old school homeless, layers and grot – no bright colours, no tech, no jewellery.

  Lugan ignored them. Some sort of roots were roasting round the edges of the fire, and his hunger was suddenly thunderstorm-loud.

  He swallowed.

  “You’re a bit out of your way,” the scarred woman said from the far side of the little circle of light. She wasn’t young, her face was lined and square, her long hair dirty and greying. Her features flickered unholy in the rising heat. She made no attempt to stand up.

  “Local, are you?” she said.

  Her cronies muttered, speculation and rumour. A couple of them were edging round behind him, and Lugan shifted, keeping an eye on them.

  “Came over the mountains,” he said.

  The mutters became open mirth. The woman raised an eyebrow and grinned at him, baring teeth that were stained, chewing-baccy brown. She was gauging his jacket, his battered, oil-stained jeans.

  “Oddest leathers I’ve ever seen,” she said. “You Banned?”

  “From several places.”

  The men shifted. Lugan went to take a step back, to keep all of them in sight, but a cudgel in his back stopped him. Weapons smacked into palms with that timeless gesture of gleeful threat.

  “I said put down the tree,” the bloke beside him said.

  “You mean this?” With little effort, Lugan cracked the heavy beam straight under the man’s chin, lifting him two inches off his feet and stretching him backwards in the dirt. The man the other side of him raised his club. Lugan slammed the opposite elbow into his face, breaking his jaw and sitting him down hard.

  The others surged, cursing.

  The scarred woman said, “Wait!”

  They stopped.

  “Stay where you are.” She was on her feet now, assessing Lugan more carefully. She said, “You came across the mountains?” This time, it was a question, and it held no mockery.

  “Yeah,” Lugan said. “Walked all the way. And you’re gonna tell me what the fuck I just walked into. What is this? Rural dystopia? There ain’t no such beast.”

  “No one lives in the Kuanne.” She nodded at the mountain pass. “They say the Kartians cursed it, that everyone died and that the mountains’ shadow was twisted. And then we forgot, like we forgot everything else.” Her stained grin spread, and he wondered if she really did have tobacco. “You want to know how I know?”

  “Not really,” Lugan told her. He searched his dog-end pocket, snatched his hand back.

  “Where d’you think I got these scars?” She came closer, prowled round the edge of the fire, some aged hag pronouncing hoodoo-voodoo. He had no fucking clue what she was talking about.

  “Tell me why everything’s dead,” he said. “Why you torched a dead village. Tell me what’s east of here – down out the mountains.”

  “We like the Kartians,” the woman said. Now, she was close enough for him to smell the liquor on her breath. “We bring them… what they need. Terhnwood, leather, food. And sometimes, other things. People who’re lost, or missing their families. Children who’ve got no one left to care for them. Those who’re unwanted, or unloved. The priestlords like their… help.” The last word was accompanied by a nod at the remaining cronies.

  Oh for fuck’s sake.

  Lugan dropped the first one with a fist in the face, spun on one boot heel and brought the beam smack into the ribs of the second, cracking wood and bone with the force of the blow. The third one, smaller and faster, hung back, grinning with a mouthful of gaps – one pace forward and a boot in the bollocks dropped him like stone.

  Everything went quiet.

  Lugan rounded on the woman with the cracked beam still in his hand.

  “Well?” he said.r />
  “Impressive,” she said. She made him sound like a custom chop.

  “I ain’t goin’ to ask you twice.” His boot came down on the neck of one of the goons.

  The action made her laugh, thin and nasty. “Maybe you really have come across the mountains,” she said. She turned to gesture eastwards, at the open darkness, at the cold. “Down there is the Varchinde, the open plain – goes all the way to Amos on the coast. And it’s finished.” The word was a brown spit, hissing, into the fire. “All of it. Dying. Dead. Even our trade’s dried up: the Kartians’ve closed their doors. Well,” she eyed him up and down, “almost.”

  Lugan lifted the beam, placed it under the woman’s chin, made her look up at him.

  “Why’d you burn the village?”

  She grinned, grot seething between her teeth. “Can’t be too careful. You know how it is.”

  Lugan lifted his boot and the fallen goon scuttled away, joining the huddle of others at the fireside. They looked up at him, sullen with hatred.

  The woman pushed the beam away, stepped inside its arc. “You ever seen the blight?” she said. “It grows through your skin, like moss. It pulls you down into the ground, eats you alive. Not just people. Animals, plants, everything living. It chokes you, and it lives off you – sucks the life right out of you. And then when you’re empty, it dies. And the worst thing? It’s not the infection, Ade Eastermann of the Banned. It’s the loss of hope. The emptiness. The worthlessness.” She gestured at the darkness. “The nothing.”

  Nothing.

  Lugan went cold.

  The word was a frisson, like a spark-plug jumping.

  Nothing.

  He stared at the woman, watched as firelight made the scars on her face shift and dance. Caught, his voice was a husk. “What d’you mean?”

  “That farm,” she said. “They gave up. The blight came, and they didn’t fight any more. They just… let themselves rot. Their livestock lay down and died in the fields, right where it was. The people sat in the chairs and just didn’t get up again. Stopped caring, stopped fighting. Let the moss grow through them. They had no more passion, no more anger, no more love. No more use for life.”

  Her voice continued, some archaic priestess in the firelight, but Lugan was staring at her, staring through her, staring at the darkness that rose behind. And he could see – as if his trip was thinning, and the grey pencil lines were returning – something beyond the black. He stood at the bottom of a rise of cells, looking up at bars across boxes, boxes where people were kept. Stopped caring, stopped fighting. They were in there, quiescent, content with a bed and a fridge. A console. People who lay unmoving, their eyes open; people who’d just… stopped.