Ecko Endgame (47 page)

D’you see me, Eliza? Is this where I was always meant to be?

Chrissakes, now his oculars were on the fritz – he could see
lines
there in the darkness. Maybe he was looking down the rift already, he didn’t know, but they were there below him, ahead of him, around him, flickering like laughter, like writing with sparklers in the dark. They were crackling through the rock under his feet, surging up into the twisting sky.

He turned, flicking his oculars, mode to mode, but the lines were unchanged, heatless and colourless, glimmering with energy unknown.

Holy shit. Then what he could see…

Those lines, they were the Powerflux itself.

He tried to open his mouth, ask the others,
Do you… do you guys…?

But it took a moment for him to realise he couldn’t speak, had no words, no way to form the question. Hell, first overwhelming fear, now a sense of wonder like a fucking kid, awe that nearly made his knees fold – it’d been a long time since his emotions’d been this free…

Well, these ones, anyhow.

That
thought made him grin wider, the black one, the one like the edge of the blade. Made him grin like he could
feel
that odd electricity in his skin, in his reflexes and adrenaline and blood. By every God, he
knew
this darkness, knew it like his own breath – he’d lived in it, fucking almost died in it, returned to himself in it, been recreated as Ecko. The dark was his cloak and his weapon, his home and his safety. And if he could
use
this crackle of power because of his own attunement to that darkness, then he was gonna fry the ass of this Kazyen Void Thingamajig and serve it up with a mug of tea.

Yeah, you jus’ bring it the fuck on, dude!

The flicker of the Powerflux was joyous, exhilarating. It flowed before him as reality juddered, teasing, at the edge of the drop. His belly did flip-flops, but they didn’t fall – not yet. The lines were still spreading outwards, ever outwards, and rising to a rage of surging power. Yet something about that surge felt wrong, as though—

His jubilant adrenaline flashed to sudden fear.

He turned to see them – needed to understand how they ran, element to element across the world, up into the clouded sky and deep into the ground. He could see how everything Eliza had created came from this network – sunrise, daylight, weather and season – hell, it even explained why the damned moons could be in opposition. It was like he was seeing the actual core code of the program itself, the very life of the world.

Hadn’t Amal said something about Eliza and the World Goddess being the same thing?

Ecko shivered, premonition and energy. Maybe Eliza really
had
made a world – a world that believed utterly in its own existence. Maybe that was the only way it could be complete enough for real interaction.

But then: what would happen to it when he’d gone?

He shivered again.

But as he looked further, searching for more power, more answers, more insights, he began to realise that the electricity was flawed – it was moving wrong. The lines weren’t straight, they shifted and eddied, and the power was increasingly uneven. It was being pulled one way, as if by some vast magnet – it was flowing in towards the fissure.

Sucked down by the Kazyen.

An’ that’s what we gotta fix. We gotta make the power run right. That’s why it needs all of us.

It made sense, all right. But hell, he didn’t have the faintest
inkling
of a shred of a motherfucking clue…

Like, who had the instruction book?

As his understanding had spread, though, he’d become aware of the others, there in the darkness with him, anchors and foci, part of the flow of the power. He could hear the Bard, his voice the sky, the storm, the rage of the thunder and the touch of the wind. He could feel the moss in Amethea’s flesh, the stone strength in her soul, the pleading life of the world. Rhan’s light and Vahl’s fire, merging at their edges. And—

You’re close now, aren’t you?

The voice was too gentle to be unexpected; it was cold and soft, there in his ear, in his heart.

Mom…?

But he wasn’t sure.

We come almost to the final hand. Be strong, my Tam, my Ecko, my little champion.

The words made his skin crawl. It was Mom, and it wasn’t. It was closer than that, insidious and rich with potency. There were layers in its tone like there’d been layers in Amal’s, and Selana’s…

Like she was
Kas
?

But no, her voice was too cold.

Ice
cold.

And then there it fucking was – the snap of the very last tumbler, the click as the box opened and the light bathed his face, that glorious moment when the last piece snicked into place.

The voice was Nivrotar.

When you come to the end, I will be there with you. Remember who crafted The Wanderer, who defended the Great Library…

It was the final corner of the Powerflux, its northern anchor, the Soul of Ice.

And it was Mom. It was Eliza. It was the fucking World Goddess herself, whatever the hell her name was…

It was the completed concert – all six elements fused at last, and melding together.

It was the brake coming off the roller coaster.

And…

Ohhhh shi-it…!

The front went up and over the lip and they followed it, all of them, their hands in the air and screaming as their bellies dropped and their teeth bared and their adrenaline surged. The lines were there, under them and round them and through them and they were a part of the Flux itself, sweeping round the routes of those lines, and utterly at the mercy of the Kazyen below.

It was pulling at them, pulling them down.

Around them was noise and juddering and the howling storm. The air with them twisted and screamed.

Through the pounding of his heart and ears, Ecko yowled, “You fucking
bitch.
You got us all here – now how do we finish this?”

That’s “You fucking bitch”, my Lord.
Nivrotar’s voice was cold and amused, and right in his ears. It was a core of unbroken strength, a pure steadiness that underlay the screaming, the raging wind.
Call me Cedetine, oldest mother. I came into the void and so began the Count of Time.
The coaster jammed round a corner, throwing them all sideways.
I bore three sons and I gave my flesh for the crafting of the world.
The coaster fell again, throwing Ecko’s belly into his mouth.
Call me Calarinde, manifest love. They gave me the yellow moon as my prison and my chariot.
The coaster paused at the bottom of a drop, was carefully cranked to the top of a second, smaller peak.
Call me Nivrotar, Lord of Amos. You, Ecko, you have your own name for me.

And over the edge it went again. A second, shorter scream, a second flash of terror and exhilaration. A rush round a bend, a rattle and a clatter.

Still, the Kazyen pulled.

But the others were there with him, blazing. He was closer to them than he’d ever been to anything in his life, to family, his half sisters, Mom’s other creations. The lines of the Flux were there, tying them together, blood and fire and sparks and light.

Ah
, she said.
We come almost to the final hand. I’m so proud of you. All of you.

The roller coaster screamed again. It cornered, sharp and swift, voices cried in layered concert. And then Ecko felt something snap, something give and break – something in the soil, in the Flux, something in the world herself…

They clattered into the station, and they stopped.

What the hell…?

He found himself on the ground, shaking, his arms and legs as weak as water. He was coughing, laughing, covered in ash. Fucksake, he wanted to puke.

Roderick and Rhan were leaning on each other in an embrace like years of friendship. Selana stood close, her face pale and her expression oddly, almost childishly, bemused. The great shadow of the Kas was still with her.

Then Ecko saw Amethea lying on the dead ground, the moss still in her skin.

Around all of them, the Flux was steadying, the huge drain slackening. The pull of the fissure was less. As his darkness thinned into normal night, Ecko couldn’t see the lines of power as clearly, but he could feel them – faint flashes in his skin, like sparks that tickled on his nerve endings.

“So – what the fuck was that?” His voice was harsh, a serrated cut of reality through wonder. “Did we
fix
it?” He called the question at the Lord of Amos, his tone bitter, edged with savagery. “Did we slay the dragon? Is spring gonna spring out the ground, now?”

The energy in him was fading, thinning out into the air. Its loss was impossible, more than he could bear. To have gone that high, just to come down…!

“Do we get a party?” His voice faltered. His face was sore from its rictus black grin. Somehow, he’d chewed the insides of his mouth to bloody ribbons. “Do we visit the Guild and level up?
What the hell did we just do?
”

About him, the air was settling, clearing.

“To face Kazyen,” Roderick said, his voice deep as night, “we had to have the full Powerflux. That’s what the Ryll told me, every soul, united and together. It was so gloriously simple – but we’d been made to forget.”

Forget.

Ecko could feel the last of the flickerings in his skin, in his wiring and cybernetics. He repeated, almost numbly, “Been made to forget.”

Across the broken grey stone, the Bard had removed his scarf. His expression was younger, had lost the weight of its years of lone belief. As he raised his face to the sky, his steel throat glittering, Ecko could see that his face was damp with tears.

Then he met Ecko’s eyes and smiled.

The look was warm, genuine; a look of humour and grief and success and loss and wonder, of achievement beyond impossible odds. It made Ecko bite his lip and turn away, refusing to let his own emotion show. Roderick had fought so long, struggled so long…

You’ve done it
, the Bard said, the words in Ecko’s ears alone.
The blight falters, and the Flux begins to flow as it should. Truly, Ecko, you’re our augured champion, the saviour of our world.

Ecko’s eyes prickled and he bit down harder, hurting his sore mouth. The storm was almost over. Ecko could feel the others drifting backwards, their closeness fading…

You’ve done it.

Had he?

Truly, Ecko, you’re our augured champion.

But then…

Why the hell am I still here?

Nervousness began to crawl down his back, trailing like cold sweat. The others withdrew further, and he shivered at their absence, suddenly alone and feeling his mortality return. Nivrotar had said,
We come almost to the final hand
, not,
Congratulations, dude, you’ve won, here’s a vacation for two in Hawaii.

But the Bard was speaking, his voice clear as morning. “Memory returns – the words the Ryll showed me, the words long buried in the Great Library at Amos. The words she showed Ress and Jayr.” His voice deepened, now almost like intonation, “‘Time when Substance of the Gods, has lost its heart of fire. Time when Promised is released, to promise yet more dire. Time shall mastery of light, give up, and lose the will to fight. Time the Flux begins to crack, to rage becomes a crime. Time Nothing is more powerful, at last, than Count of Time. Then Time you bid your world farewell, your Gods, tonight, they sleep in Hell.’” He was coming closer to Ecko as he spoke, his voice getting ever deeper. “‘Time when Final Guardian, defeated at the last, time when passion cannot sing, and everything held fast. Time your world farewell be kissed, unless you find the—’”

“Catalyst.” Ecko spat the word, hearing Ress’s voice saying it, even as he did so. “Catamite, catatonic, catalytic fucking converter. Chris
sakes.
” Still off-centre with hollow loss and unease, with his strange and nebulous fear, he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. “
Now
you remember the ubiquitous prophecy?” It was a piss-take, Eliza having a laugh; he couldn’t wrap his head round it. “Oh, this takes the motherfucking cookies. What kind of fantasy gives you the prophecy at the
end
?” He didn’t know whether to laugh or punch things. “Oh, you
bitch
!”

Roderick laughed, rich and free, a laugh that cleared the grey of the sky and warmed the air around him. He was sharing Ecko’s disbelief, his humour at the irony – shared the fucking great joke the world had apparently played on all of them.

Rhan knelt over Amethea, his growl like gravel, “All right, it’s not that funny.”

“It really is.” The Bard’s laugh faded to a chuckle. “All that searching and seeking and hand-wringing, all that hope and work and struggle, everything I fought for and preached about. For so many returns…” The colour was fading from his voice as he spoke, replaced by perplexity. “The tavern, they used to say it travelled through every point at once, which was how it knew all people, all places. I remember the day Nivrotar gave it to me, and I remember losing it. Karine. My friends. Our long travels. The
cat
…” The sentence tailed into silence, and the air above him thickened. The wind was cold. “All that… all that was pointless. For nothing.”

Nothing.

The word hung like ash in the air.

The wind breathed soft, like a threat. Under its touch, the ground rumbled, ever so slightly, like some stirring, sleeping creature.

He could hear Rhan, his voice distant and soft as a smothering cushion. “Wake up. Amethea, little sister, it’s over. You can wake up now…”

Whatever it was, Ecko could feel it too. Flickers of disquiet, flashes of unrest in the Flux. Spasms. The pull was returning, subtler now, deep and cold. Mocking. The recovering Flux faltered, sucking back towards the centre, towards the fissure and the pull of Kazyen.

Shit.

Whatever it was down there, it wasn’t fucking dead. Hell, like all bad guys, the damn thing had to come back at least once.