Ecko Burning (50 page)

Rhan was standing over them. He wore the smoke of the city behind him like a cloak of wrath. He bore the sky like a personal light, the sunshine like anger. He did not need to say it aloud.
Vahl. I’ve been waiting for you.

Still with the theatre?
Vahl laughed with Phylos’s mouth, laughed as if the city, the smoke and the ruin were his to own, as if the Varchinde itself belonged to him in ash and rubble and loss.
Save it, I can see through you.

Aloud, he said, “Brother.”

* * *

Pressed flat against the wall, Mael and Selana stood, stunned, at the outmost edge of the mosaic. They had seen the streak of illumination, seen it strike the balcony, seen Phylos rend his robe and hurl himself from the balcony’s edge.

There had been a detonation, a massive whack of air and light that had knocked everyone - everything - back from the point of impact. People sprawled, screaming; dust and rubbish tumbled. For a moment, the city seemed to contain a whirlwind, coiling heat and light in an inseparable, crazed spiral, then Phylos hit the mosaic with an impact that sent cracks through the pattern, cracks through the city itself - and over him stood the blazing-white figure of the Seneschal.

“Rhan. Oh my Gods...” Selana’s hands went to her mouth. She had tears in her eyes that glittered with rainbows of refracted light. Mael had no idea if the gesture was fear or relief, whether she still blamed Rhan for the hurt that had been done to her family, or whether she was overwhelmed to have him back with her, and for her.

Mael
somehow
had just found an answer.

He said, “Now, my Lord, now while we can. We must reach the balcony!”

But he couldn’t tear her away.

Slowly, some manifest monster, Phylos stood up.

The mosaic had dented at his impact, as if he carried new weight, an authority never before seen. He wore only his clout, his massive physique writhed with patterns of ink and darkness - he looked as though he could explode, seethe into a tentacled growth of something else entirely, grow roots, wings. He looked as if his soul were suddenly larger than his flesh and could barely be contained.

And he was laughing.

The sound shuddered through the mosaic at his feet, through the city itself, it echoed from the palace wall. Every creature in Fhaveon heard him as he spoke.

“Brother.”

The word was a death knell.

And then he turned, raising his arms like a priest from some ancient and forgotten saga. He threw them wide, encompassing all of the madness and the destruction and the inhuman and impossible creatures that now stood, stunned, about the edge of the mosaic.

“Now,” he said, “let us show my brother his homecoming.”

And around them, the stunned creatures began to shift into motion.

Selana shuddered at the sound of his voice. Mael could hear it - as clear as the sky itself. He was no longer Phylos, he was something darker and softer, something more elegant and smothering - something far more dangerous. As the ranged forces at the edges of the mosaic came slowly to life, began to move forwards towards the single figure in their midst, the young Lord shook herself and lunged, crying aloud, “Rhan! I’m here!
Rhaaaaaan!”

Mael made a grab for her arm.

Surrounded by violence, the Seneschal almost turned, almost heard her, but the tide of darkness was seething forwards now, creeping over the broken mosaic, soldiers armed and angry, creatures twisted with righteous rage, burning with steam that shimmered in the air. That tide was all around him, incoming and threatening to take him down - and at its centre Phylos pulled it to him and wrapped himself in it, used it as cloak and glory and weapon.

For a moment, Mael stared at it all blindly and wondered where all of the people had gone. If the riots had just been...

...a distraction.

Dear Gods.

He pulled Selana’s arm. “My Lord. My Lord. We must go!”

For an instant longer she stood there, straining, as if she willed Rhan to fight, willed him to hear her, as if by sheer force of wishing she could undo all of this madness and go back to just being Selana, the only child of a gentle father -

Move!
Saravin’s voice in Mael’s ears made the old scribe shake the girl, Lord or no, and
run.

* * *

Rhan was home.

Home to a nightmare, home to a city destroyed by four hundred returns of his brother’s scheming and building and patience.

And now they came for him - weapons raised and mouths stretched in hate - soldiers, monsters, creatures. They came from every direction, faster now, burning with eagerness and clawing at each other in the effort to reach him first. They came with eyes of darkness, of fire, eyes that reflected his own light. As they closed in upon him, they tussled to gain ground, they turned on each other, snarling and fighting. Among them, lost and crushed, or carried forward by the flow, came the ordinary people of Fhaveon, those few survivors who had taken to the streets in protest and now found themselves caught in this crazed war not of their making.

They were cut and crushed and trampled, forgotten, into the mosaic below.

And Phylos - Vahl - just stood back and watched them die.

But this was what Rhan had been made for. Defending the city, not against manipulations and politics, but against the manifest physical flesh of her foes - against his risen brother.

At last.

This was what mattered.

Phylos’s fetter had gone, and even though the soul of light was sunken, Rhan could still attune himself to the vibrations of the elemental Powerflux with a skill that made Maugrim look like a ’prentice.

And he was
angry.

The first creature dropped with a fist to its temple - brutal and satisfying - he didn’t even see what it was. And then there were two of them, three, four, five, and they were on him like a deluge. For a few moments, it looked like he would be overwhelmed, there were too many; they were coming from every direction. The sheer weight of them was too much, and they were bearing him down to the mosaic to be crushed along with the people of the Lord city. He was faltering, falling...

No. It’s not that damned easy.

With a roar that was as much force as volume, he regained his feet, threw them back. They tumbled from him, bloodied and dying, like he was the heart of his own explosion, like he was the Powerflux itself. Here was a vialer, broken and discarded; here a soldier, picked up and thrown back, his head shattered on the tiles. Here was a trader, carried forward by the tide and crushed between the force before him and the incoming creatures behind. Rhan did not even see him.

In the midst, a lone centaur, head and body higher than the rest and claws raking the tiles as it came. He was young, bore blades that he wielded with impressive skill, hacked his way through friend and foe alike to reach where Rhan was standing.

The tiles were
melting
under the Seneschal’s feet.

The centaur bellowed, and Rhan turned to face it. He did not even pause - he was laughing like his brother now and he simply raised a hand and gestured, throwing the creature away. It faltered, screaming like an injured horse; it dropped one weapon to cover its eyes. Blind, it careered, clawing and crushing. A moment later, a soldier behind it ripped a hole in its gut in an effort to save her own life.

The creature tumbled sideways, kicking, took several members of the woman’s tan down with it. Its remaining weapon slashed at anything that came close and the awful scream went on.

The tan turned on it, hacked it to pieces.

Phylos was still laughing.

Raging now, elated and hard and pure, Rhan picked up a sneering nartuk bodily and threw it, its body combusting even as it left his hands, and turning into crisping flesh and charcoal. The stink was sickening. It crashed into a huddling group of rioters, taking them down and sending the survivors screaming for the shelter of the roadways.

Smoke rose from the corpse.

At the edges of the mosaic, people were fleeing now - the soldiers among them. Rhan was berserk, purging himself of long returns of inactivity and laziness and guilt, oblivious to anything but his own savage release.

And Phylos was still laughing.

* * *

The door to the back of the palace kitchens was closed.

Selana shrugged, knocked on the door three times and then twice.

There was a long silence, a space that seemed to last until the end of the Count of Time. Mael checked behind them, watching the scattered savagery. He could hear his heart beating despite the roar that was rising from the city’s streets... and then the door eased open and half a face peered around the edge.

“Yes?”

“It’s me.” Selana was through it like a bolt from a slingshot, Mael following.

The young man who had opened the door wore a cook’s greasy overshirt and a frown. “My Lord! You shouldn’t be here. They’re trying to breach the gates!”

“We must get to the balcony.” On her home ground now, the Lord pushed the young man gently out of the way and eyed the long arch of the corridor before her, rocklit doorways to either side. She said to Mael, “Can you still run?”

His heart was thundering.

“I’m not done yet, my Lord.”

From somewhere, they could hear rising sounds of panic, then a solid boom as something hit the front gates. The floor under them shook. Selana paled, gathered her skirts and her breath, and they ran.

Behind them, the young man called, “But what are you going to do when you get there? My Lord? My Lord!”

Mael had got this far by wit and luck and the seat of his breeches - if they got to the balcony and Rhan had fallen, they had better make this convincing because it was the last thing either of them would ever do.

Cries came down the passageway. Selana skidded round a corner, another, raced past the long foodhall, stumbled up a flight of steps and came out in the main entranceway of the Fhaveon Palace.

“By the Gods.” In the midst of the madness, Mael paused.

He’d never been in here, never had reason. The huge door, the tiled floor, the sweep of steps, the colossal painting that covered the ceiling - Saluvarith himself, blessed by the Gods, laying the first stones of the city on the site of the legendary Swathe. The room was huge, it echoed with emptiness and it robbed Mael of words and breath. He -

Behind him, the door juddered under a massive impact. The walls quivered. Raised voices outside chanted mockery, echoed the sound of Phylos’s steam-filled laughter.

Selana cried, “Come on!”

She was gone up the huge stairway, faster than Mael could follow. His heart was labouring in his chest now, the rhythm oddly strong and too fast, but he didn’t have time to worry. For just a moment, he wished that Saravin was with him, that the old warrior could have done this instead of him - perhaps he would have done it differently, or better.

The door juddered again. The drop-bar shook and dust fell. There were whoops and cries from outside - another impact like that one and the damned thing would give.

In the hallway below, a strident voice was assembling a tan of the palace guard, a small and decorative force that, by Mael’s reckoning, would last about as long as a sneeze. They stood like a gaggle of nervous dancers, fidgeting with weapons they had no idea how to use.

When the doors went, they would scream and scatter and die.

He didn’t have time to even feel pity for them.

Selana was bounding upwards. She rounded the corner of the stairs and paused to check the landing. The judder and boom echoed again from below, and Mael could hear the voice calling the straggled force to rally and hold firm. He glanced, but could not see the commander. As he reached the top of the stairs, he stopped, hauling breath into wheezing lungs, his heart thundering, swift and relentless, counterpoint to the rhythm of the battering below.

Then there was a terrible weight in his chest, a sudden hot thumping in his ears. His vision was going dark, tunnelling in about him. He tried to go after Selana, but he really couldn’t breathe and his legs were like water and he needed to sit down.

Just to catch his breath.

Just for a moment...

You silly old fool,
said Saravin.
You’ve done it, you’ve really done it. You can stop now. Everything will be fine.

Brother Mael slid to the floor, one hand on his chest. He really wanted an ale, but he decided, all in all, as his vision blackened and his heart seemed to labour even harder, that his old friend was probably right.

He’d done what he had to. He could stop now.

* * *

Rhan stood alone amid the cries of the dying.

He was breathing hard, stained with blood and filth and ash. His light dimmed with weariness, but he was still standing, and the mosaic was his.

Only Phylos still stood, watching him with the eyes of his brother.

In the streets, the fighting continued, knots and ripples of violence. The steady boom of the assault on the palace - the war for the city was not yet done. Here, though, there was silence.

Then Vahl said, soft as ruin, “Your skill does you proud, my brother. Your returns of idleness have not made you soft.”

“Get out of my city.” Rhan spat contempt and anger. He was in no mood for word games.

“Your city?” Vahl laughed at him. Ink writhed across Phylos’s flesh, as if it strove to break free and coil through the stone beneath. “Your city? The city that you’ve lost, brother, the city that you’ve failed, despite Samiel’s charge?”

“I’ve failed nothing.
Brother.”

“You’ve failed everything.” Phylos spoke with his own voice, with Vahl’s tones sliding through and round and under them. “Don’t you remember? Samiel cast you down for loving his daughter, for laying your hands upon the body of the Goddess. Don’t you remember how she felt, Kas Rhan Elensiel? How she tasted? Calarinde - she rises in glory above you every night of your immortal life, and you can never touch her again.” Phylos came forwards as he spoke, insidious and mocking. “Ah, but you never knew the truth of it, my poor estavah, my halfdamned brother. You didn’t seduce the Goddess - how could you? Look at you. She came to you, took you, loved you - just so you’d be cast down. Samiel set you up, you fool, and then he damned you for it.” Phylos’s smile was as wide as the sky, too wide for his face. “And still, you’ve failed.”