Ecko Burning (23 page)

“Phylos’s putting out his feelers,” Redlock said. “Consolidating. If he controls Fhaveon, the Cartel, the military... If he wants to control the other cities, he’s got to control the roads -”

“Does he have that kind of force?” Amethea asked, the fire warm on her skin. “If his goons are out here, then who’s watching the home fires?”

The question was purely sense, but it made both the others turn to stare, then look at each other as if some light were dawning.

Triqueta said, “This place is the ass-end of nowhere, probably belongs to Amos to boot. Maybe Fhaveon
is
just after us -?”

“We haven’t done anything.” Redlock flashed a grin that said,
Yet.
He came back to the circle of firelight, then turned his back to watch the moon-shadowed buildings, the empty stretch of road. “I’m with Thea - if they’re all the way out here, then they’re spreading everywhere. And if they’re spreading everywhere, then either Fhaveon herself is helpless - which I doubt - or she’s building one rhez of an army.”

Triqueta eyed the downed soldier, the marker still in her hand.

“We should go back to Amos, tell Nivrotar -”

“She already knows,” Amethea said. “That’s why she wants weapons. And I’m beginning to think” - the fire popped, startling her - “that all in all, the Lord Nivrotar knows a lot more than she’s letting on.”

He was light as a child, bird-fragile, his body wasting even as they’d fled from the palace. She’d carried him in her arms like a child and he’d clung to her shoulder, silent in the gathering evening and more tightly focused than she’d ever seen. His thin frame was trembling, wound to the hilt with tension.

He’d frightened her. She’d had no idea that he was capable of -

Dear Gods.

The memory made her shudder and she shoved it away - as she had so many. It was how she moved forwards.

Don’t think about it.

In her urgency, Jayr had taken almost nothing with her - a belt-blade and a waterskin, a bag on her shoulder. Benefits of her Kartian upbringing - she’d little need for
stuff.

Poor crazed Ress. She’d striven to understand - what he was saying, where it’d come from. The thing he’d found in the Library that’d cost him his mind, seeing Triqueta, the terhnwood, the strange little man in the cloisters with the light seeping across his skin like disease. Ress had repeated his name like a mantra: “Ecko, Ecko, Ecko...”

Enough. He’s had enough.

His hitting out hadn’t surprised her. But what he’d
done...

Jemara, hands pleading, knees folding, face draining of her flush and her puff and her cheery humour - toppling to the floor, eyes empty... lightless and soulless, her hands curling into claws and her mind just...

...gone...

Jayr didn’t scare easy - but Ress had just sucked the life and the light out of her.

Impossible, and terrifying.

They fled - they had to. Once, Jayr had fled the great crafthalls of the Kartiah, fought her way free by sheer, brutal determination. Something deep in her heart still really wanted - hungered, lusted - to return. She wanted to make them beg, to make them
pay
, to hear them scream. She wanted to avenge herself for what they’d done to her, right at the last...

Jayr smouldered with constant fury. She’d no idea how she’d come to be raised in the pit-fighting slavery of the Kartians - it was just how it was, her life for as long as she could remember. She’d no recollection of anything previous - of parents, of siblings - no half-remembered dream, no understanding of why they’d not wanted her.

From as young as she could remember, she’d disdained emotional contact. She’d been raised to fight, fist and fury, her anger channelled and built, moulded and crafted. It had kept her alive when so many around her had died, many of those by her own hands, a scar for every one. And as her skills had increased, so she’d become noticed by her Kartian masters -and so they’d forged her like they forged their metals, into something that couldn’t be broken.

Until the day they’d traded her body for something other than combat.

She’d killed four of them, and fled into the darkness. Raised without light, she’d been skilled enough - just - to reach Vanksraat, where Ress had found her.

And refused to leave her.

The Banned adopted misfits, or misfits joined the Banned. It’d taken Ress a very long time to help Jayr adjust, but he’d never given up on her, never left her side, and his gentleness and insight had been more than she could understand, at times. He’d reduced her to rage, to tears, to many times fleeing the love he’d showed her.

But she’d always come back.

And now, she would neither judge nor leave him.

He shifted in her arms, mouthing empty syllables. After a moment, he managed, “Jayr,” forcing her name past his teeth, striving to focus on her face. “Look.”

He was trying to tell her that they’d come to the edge of the palace’s island.

Ahead of them was an open mosaic; on its far side, one of the myriad bridges that spanned the “moat” formed by the bifurcating Great Cemothen River. There were eight or ten of them, joining the little island to the main streets.

They were all guarded, though more from tradition than necessity.

To flee the palace, she would have to cross the open ground.

“We need to wait,” she told him. “Watch.”

“No time. No time no
time
no
time
no time like now.” Ress had pulled himself up to her ear. He was struggling to speak, to cling to his sanity for long enough to form words. “Trust... me. We have to go.”

“Trust you to what? Not pull my brain out through my eyeballs? I can’t cross there without being seen.”

“I can... do this...” He was tense with white-hot urgency, with single-minded compulsion. His skin was scorching; his blood afire in his veins. He was shaking with effort, his concentration was pure and absolute. “Just... walk...”

“Just walk?” she hissed back at him. “I’m Jayr the cursed Infamous, remember? People
notice
me.”

“Walk.”
Ress’s frame burned with intensity. “Now!”

Barely daring to believe, she walked out into the open.

The bridge guard didn’t look up. He was young, bored, but too well disciplined to yawn. He rubbed his hands against the gathering evening.

As Jayr walked, her heart in her mouth, a faint sense of light-headedness crept through her, almost as though she were advancing through twilight, a fog, a dream. Her feet weren’t quite touching the tiles, her flesh felt oddly...

Just walk!

What?

Disbelief and wonder held her breath in her throat. She came to the end of the carven stone bridge, passed a handspan in front of the guard’s nose, close enough for him to feel the air they disturbed.

But he was watching the wheeling birds.

Ress...
She looked down at the madman she held in her arms.
What the rhez has happened to you...?

Ress curled motionless into her shoulder, Jayr of the Banned walked unseen from the palace - and from Jemara’s empty mind.

Free.

From everything.

For a moment, she turned back, looked up at the dark, narrow-windowed wall above her - at Nivrotar, Triqueta, Amethea, the lost and blank-eyed thing that had been Jemara, the strange little man whose name compelled like a talisman.

Ecko.

Ress coughed, a tiny sound, like a warning.

She turned away.

Below her, the huge, broad stretch of the river rolled slowly beneath the stone - it would reunite briefly on the palace’s far side before spreading out into the sprawling, bustling mass of the Estuary Wharf. There was movement down on the river, a gaggle of young man calling lewd jests at one another.

They didn’t look up.

As they reached the bridge’s far side, Ress suddenly went slack, the tension leaving his body. She clung to him, almost stumbling to her knees as her feet were suddenly solid on the roadway.

Swiftly, she ducked into a side-alley.

“Ress, by the Gods. What did you...?
How
did you...?”

“Fo-cus... un-der-stand.” Held in her arms, he was smiling up at her, vacant and child-like, his mis-sized pupils staring loco. Drool sparkled. Watching him fight to speak was cursed creepy. “Believe,” he said. “Just.
Believe.”

“You’re a real -”

“Just” - he was almost laughing, breathing and jaw both loose -
“lead.
People follow, always follow.” Then he seemed to remember something. He said, “Leave the city, we must go.”

“We need to get the rhez clear before they start looking for us - once they find Jemara, they’ll tear this cursed city apart to get us.” She watched his crazed expression. “You need to go somewhere?”

He nodded, blinking as if he fought to focus his vision.

“North... coast-road. But quiet. We must go...
must go...”

“Okay, north,” she repeated. “I picked up barter-stuff, but not much. Where we going?”

“Fhaveon,” he said. Then he pulled himself upwards and whispered in her ear.

She stopped dead, sudden chills chasing over her flesh.

“You’re jesting? Even if we manage to get as far as the Lord city, we’ll not find someone to -”

“We’ll find... someone,” said Ress. “We must. No time no time no
time.
Found my mind - my courage - Ecko showed me. We must remember!”

Remember.

For a long moment, Jayr said nothing, her mind turning over the implications of the intended destination - wondering at the sheer crazed impossibility of the idea.
Ecko showed me.

She would be walking to her own death and carrying him with her.

But her resentment crystallised, shattered.

Why the rhez not? It’s not like there’s anything for us here. I trust you, Ress. I swear, you’re the only sane one left.

She said softly, “It’s a damned good thing you’ve got
me
looking after you, old man, ’cause I got nothing left to lose.” A frown flickered across his features, his mouth started to move, but she spoke over him. “Fhaveon it is. If I have to carry you all the cursed way.”

* * *

Assured that the injured Saravin was in the best hands, Scribe Mael had gone to Fletcher Wyll’s secret meeting.

He needed to understand.

After the first one, though, it had been woefully apparent that Wyll, for all his ideals, had no idea which feet to put his boots on. He’d made a pretty speech, but when the time had come for planning, for decisions, he’d had no idea how to proceed. Political rhetoric was fine - but it was a great deal easier to descry the current situation than it was to build a new one.

Mael had noticed, at the second meeting, that many had not come back.

Already, he doubted the security of this neophyte movement. With the tan commander Mostak disgraced and remanded for Cylearan’s murder, Phylos was now in absolute control of both the Cartel and the soldiery. His reach was wide; his might vast. The very future of the Varchinde now lay entirely in the Merchant Master’s hands - his sheer power gave Mael the shivers.

Fletcher Wyll’s second meeting had been held in the same place - the ironically named Angel, a small tavern cellar at one side of the city’s lazy and decorous midriff. They’d had no rocklights, only tallow candles that danced ominous figments across the whitewashed walls. Stamping and raucous noises had come from above, causing trickles of wood-dust from the beams to tumble through the smoky air and onto the tables. The Angel’s proprietor was a supporter of Wyll’s sincere but haphazard cause - though, Mael thought, his ale might have been better.

However poor the ale, though, and however vague the group’s intentions, Fletcher Wyll’s concerns were genuine and his passion powerful. He was more idealist than organiser - a craftsman with a sudden and unexpected new vocation - and his call was strong.

“A core of strength,” he’d said, his voice ringing. “A bold few who have seen the truth and understand what is happening to our city. The harvest falters - we know this. But Phylos hoards our terhnwood, arms the city’s soldiers against her own manors and traders, and against the grasslands entire. How can I get wood for my arrows, when I have nothing to trade? How will I get twine, and glue, and feathers for my fletchings? And without my arrows, how useless is my bow? And is this not true for every one of you sitting here? Andrin - without tehrnwood, how will you have the fibres for the tools that shape your clay? Will you craft with your hands alone? Farrhon, without terhnwood, how will you craft your adornments so loved by the ladies? How will you trade for your family’s food? And you, Mael, without terhnwood, how will you even have paper?” The use of his name had made him start. “And that is just where it begins - no weapons, no tools, no trade, no books or records. Our very structure will come undone!”

Mael had listened to him patiently, trying to sort out how he felt. In the city above - out there, over their heads - the Terhnwood Harvester’s Cartel had brought in new measures. Terhnwood distribution was being rationed, now, it was no longer to be used for non-essential items, such as jewellery or personal decoration. The soldiery patrolled markets and bazaars; many had been sent out to the farmlands. There were rumours Fhaveon was withholding her terhnwood supplies to other cities; rumours that they, in response, would withhold stocks of wood and stone. Fletcher Wyll had a gift for seeing the truth of these things.

And yet, Mael mused, as he slipped up the stone steps and out into the early evening streets, word had come from the Council of Nine that there was no cause to be concerned. Terhnwood was hardy, it was a fast-growing crop - the Cartel was controlling the spread of the blight by burning. The people had only to be patient, and all would be well. They were clearing the fields, planting again...

The old scribe was so intent on his thoughts that he nearly fell over the beggar.