Ecko Burning (19 page)

Sera!

Roderick was moving, but not fast enough, not
fast
enough. Karine was already running to where Sera had half-spun to the floor, one shoulder punched clean through as if by some giant bradawl. Flesh and gore had burst from the back of the wound. Silfe had her hands over her face, buried in her hair; she was screaming, screaming, rocking back and forth. The shrill sound shredded the air and nerves.

Over and over, like eternally shattering glass.

“Christ, shut
up,
you bitch.” The man turned, the weapon detonated again and Silfe was falling, the screaming torn down, the back of her head completely gone.

Gone.

Roderick stared. The Count of Time slowed to a tumble of absolute impossibility.

Gone.

Silfe’s expression was one of shock, her eyes were open and her lips still parted on that final scream. She fell, with exquisite slowness, through the Bard’s disbelief, her head falling back and her hair flying wide, a pale glow about her face. She fell backwards as if through a fog, through a thickening of the air, through a rising, heart-pounding cry of denial.

That last scream echoed from the walls.

Gone.

The Count of Time had left him. The Bard wanted, needed, to move, but the thick air held him like mud, like dismay, like incredulity. He’d no understanding of what he’d just seen.

Gone.

It was too much.

All of this. Too much.

As he watched the girl fall, his mind, stupidly, spun old memories. Down through the returns, the tavern had manifested in many places, in cities outside the Varchinde, in poverty and desolation and desperation, in the halls of the Kartian CraftMasters, in the semi-mythical ruins of the Kuanne. Many times, they’d been met with superstition and confusion, with outright violence.

But this? This broken brightness, this stinking air. They were lost to lore and a world from where they should be... How could they face this assault? Face death at the flinch of a finger, face traumatised people even more damned scared than they were?

Gone.

Karine’s voice slammed into him; her words hit him like fists. She was shielding Sera, shouting incomprehensible words one after another, a raw torrent of fury and hurt. Roderick staggered, found he could move, breathe. He’d grabbed the end of the blaster and tried to take it before realising the heat of it had blistered his hand.

He heard his own voice. “Get out. Or I’ll tear you to
pieces.”
It was lethal, as sharp as a fibre across an exposed throat.

Then he felt the kiss of cold metal as the mouth of the woman’s weapon caressed his cheek. Her other hand cupped his buttock.

She smiled at him. “Not before I spread your pretty face up the wall.”

“Awright, enough! Strafe, ’Eels, what the ’ell is goin’ on?”

The bellow brought quiet. The two warriors stepped back, but they exchanged a look that chilled the Bard to the core. It reminded him of Ecko, somehow, of something that was no longer human - something that didn’t care...

Another figure cast a shadow in the doorway.

Tall as the Bard, Archipelagan in build, Banned in attitude. This man wore leather, battered and black, and his eyes flickered with a faint, fire-spark blue. With the harsh white light behind him, his face was hard to make out - but the shaven head, the blonde beard, the ink that decorated the skin of his forearms...

Suddenly, everything snapped into place.

It was real, it was all real.

Grief and shock and tension surged in the Bard’s blood, making him stare, stare again.

Dear Gods.

“I’m Ade Eastermann,” the man said. “Me mates call me Lugan.” He looked the Bard up and down for a moment, then punched a huge, inked fist into the doorframe as if to assure himself of its solidity. “And you can’t park this ’ere.”

* * *

Jesus Hairy
Christ
on a fucking motor scooter.

Lugan stood in the front garden of a quasi-medieval
pub
that had just beamed-the-fuck-down-Scotty in the middle of his chop shop.

Its landlord was some mock-goth long-hair with a taste for high boots and loose sleeves, all now blood-slicked from a fucked-up first contact. The only other still-moving person was a woman, crouched on the floor over her injured mate - fuck’s sake, one dead and one terminally wounded was not how this shit was supposed to go down.

Lugan had access to some kickarse meditech. But not yet.

Right now, this was just too batshit.

Strafe and Heels, the unhinged twins, had been banished back to the office. In the bar-room, Lugan’s ocular scanners were showing him body heat but not much else. His brain tried to rationalise an explanation out of 3D printing or holographic projection, but he kept getting distracted by the pub sign.

It depicted the legend, “The Wanderer”.

Well no fucking shit.

Fuller rattled in his ear:
Density scan confirms: timber-framed, stone foundations. It’s not showing on the National Grid, hasn’t accessed our data, power, plumbing or sewage. Whatever it is, it’s a self-contained entity. Furball’s prepping the scan.

Lugan said,
But it’s solid? Close Encounters of the Beer Kind?

’Fraid so. Two storeys, total height at roof apex just under six metres - means it hasn’t breached the railway bridge. No internal security I can ascertain. Does have a sizeable cellar system - we’ve lost access to rooms three through seven.

Collator?

Analysing for nanotech bio-polymer and showing weather systems in Guatemala. I think he’s got a headache. Not much help, doing this old school.

Lugan snorted, watched the strange building.
What ’appened to Miz Gabriel?

Floored her Beamer and fled. You want her traced?

Keep an eye on ’er willya? And get a full chemical scan of every-fucking-thing she touched. Check the air recyclers. If we’re trippin’ our nuts off, I wanna know.

Will do.

The sub-vocal exchange had taken barely a moment. The goth-type was crouched, looking down at the dead girl, at her last, shocked expression.

Lugan shifted faintly awkwardly, his boots making scars in the grass.

The man didn’t look up. When he spoke, his voice was rust and steel.

“She was a child. She did nothing to you.”

The commander glowered. “Is this some sorta joke?” The body was just another impossibility; this whole thing was a movie, a brainrig, a trip. “’Cause it ain’t funny.”

The goth-type shot him a glance. Somehow, his face was too young for the lines that carved through it, though his expression was hard as setting ferrocrete.

“I require an apothecary,” he said. “And an explanation.”

“Not sure that one needs a doc.” Lugan was brutal and didn’t bloody well care. “I dunno ’ow the fuck you got this in ’ere, but you get it the fuck back out. Before I bring in the JCB.”

The goth raised an eyebrow. He stayed down by the girl as if he were guarding her, and said, “My name is Roderick of Avesyr.” He threw the words like weapons, daring. “And I’m a friend of the man who calls himself ‘Ecko’. You know him. He has a silent G.”

The commander skidded up short, lunacy screaming like jammed-on brakes. “What?”

Now, the goth stood up, as tall as Lugan, lighter on his feet. Lugan’s scans showed no enhancements, no wacky trip-colours, only body-heat - body-heat and anger.

“You heard me,” the man said. “Now, I require an
apothecary.
”

The commander snorted. “Or you’ll do
what
exactly? Conjure dragons?”

The woman had her hands on the injured man’s shoulder in an attempt to staunch the bleeding. It took a minute for Lugan to realise that she was pressing the front of the wound, not the back.

As if she felt Lugan looking, her chin lifted and her expression was hard as a promise.

Christ on a
bike.

Lugan was catching himself up - and wondering what the bloody hell was going on. He felt like he’d walked onto a set, like he’d dropped some big fat pill and was tripping his nuts off, like that little bitch Tarquinne, Ecko’s sister, had come in here and spiked his tea. He punched the wall again as if expecting it to move, to splinter and waver and fade under his fist - but the goth was still speaking, anger thrumming like a bassline.

He said, “I know you, Lugan. I know the mission you sent Ecko upon. I know about Pilgrim, about Grey. Now, if you want an explanation, you get me a damned
leech.”
The last word was a snarl.

The mission you sent Ecko upon.

About Pilgrim, about Grey.

Fuming now, helpless, confused, guilty, Lugan surged into the doorway that Strafe had kicked in - but he wouldn’t go through it, not yet.

He said, “Whatever this is, it ain’t fucking funny. Ecko failed ’is mission, ’e
died.
An’ if you don’t shut your mouth, you’ll be -”

“Joining him?” The goth came forwards, facing him, fearless. “How many of my friends with me? Is this usually how you treat -”

“This ain’t fuckin’ ’alloween, mate.” His anger was focusing now. Lugan pressed the goth for a reaction. “You ain’t ’ere an’ that’s the end of it.”

“How do I prove it to you?” The goth was opposite him now, staring out at the workshop, the oil stains, the bits of bike and old posters. “Ecko believes you abandoned him, threw him away.” He was fast, merciless. “Use of your name angers him. He misses you, though he would never admit it. Do you need me to tell you how tall he is? What of your cybernetics he offers? What he likes for his noontide meal?” His face set. “Do you?”

Lugan lifted a fist, but the woman shouted up at them, “Oh for Gods’ sakes, stop it! Silfe is
dead.
Sera too if you don’t do something! Put your cocks away and
help!”

“Jesus fucking
Christ!”
Lugan’s head was spinning. If Tarquinne had been here to put something in his bloodstream, then it might explain why he felt like was going to chuck up.

Fuller? You there? What the ’ell —?

Chemical scan negative, Luge; the air-recyclers are pure. Furball’s on stand-by - you can save that guy’s life if you get the gurney in there now.

“Bollocks!” Again, the commander slammed a fist into the wall. This time, he split his knuckles and a spatter of blood baptised the brickwork.

He had no clue what the fuck he was supposed to do. There were too many connections, too many coincidences, too many impossibilities - it all roared round his head like the Wall of Death at a rally, and the engine noise was deafening him. He reached for explanations, tried to make sense of it, gave up.

This is bullshit!

Fuller’s calm tones still spoke in his ear.
Bio-polymer scan negative. And last I heard 3D printers weren’t that good at granite. Luge - either we’re all tripping... or that thing’s really here.

We’re all fucking tripping, mate.

Roderick said, his voice soft, “Ecko was here, Lugan. His kit is in my cellars, his memory burned across the minds of my” - his voice cracked - “of my
staff.”

The word was an accusation, helpless and bereft. The man dropped his gaze, exhaled, rubbed thumb and forefinger over his eyes.

Shit.
Lugan reached for a dog-end, lit it, blew a stream of greasy smoke in the goth’s face. “You bring ’is kit out ’ere, and I’ll send in the doc.”

“Come in and see it for yourself.” Upset or not, the goth didn’t even cough.

Lugan hissed tobacco between his teeth.

Any further response was drowned out by a rising, thunderous rumble, a heavy-weight of noise that gathered force and fury - the 16:03, right on time and right over their heads. Tools jumped on their wall-nails, pottery wine containers clattered in their racks.

A roof-tile slammed edge-first into soft garden soil.

The train deafened them, then faded.

The goth took a step forward, coming right to the inside of the shattered door.

“Lugan,” he said softly. “Upon my life and upon my word as once Ryll Guardian, this is The Wanderer - and we are really here. Ecko is my friend - though that friendship can be hard to manage.” He paused, looking for the connection, the point of shared empathy. “Please. These people mean the world to me. Help Sera.”

Canny fucker.
Lugan labelled him.
Talker, fixer, dealer.
Over the link, he said,
Fuller?

Voice stress analysis right off the scale - has a level of sincerity I’ve never heard. He believes what he’s saying - completely. Heart rate’s failing on the injured guy.

Lugan leaned down and picked up the roof-tile, fragments of soil and moss clinging to its edges, pieces of another world. One sharp blow to the head, a couple of strategic detonations and a night trip down to the river... This whole mess would just go the fuck away.

Fuller said,
I’m getting no electrical signature whatsoever, no data-feed, no security systems. No external comms. No plastics, no man-made fibres. And this is weird - I’m getting almost no metals, pure or alloy.

Cam?

We’ve got audio, can’t get the angles for visual. Furball’s good to go, Luge.

Awright! Quit the guilt trip!

Dog-end stuck to his bottom lip, Lugan squinted through the rising smoke.

“If Ecko
was
’ere,” he said, “then where’s ’e
now.”
He dropped the tile, edge first, into the soft soil and put his boot on it, driving it down.

Roderick took a step out of the doorway, breaking the barrier, looking up at the workshop that surrounded him. In the light, his hair was blacker than any goth’s, his oddly young face drawn in suntan and white lines.

“I will tell you everything I can.” His voice was lambent, and contained a tension that went somehow beyond the situation. “If you will help Sera.”