Ecko Rising (7 page)

An “otherwise”? What was that: a Connecticut Yankee in the King Arthur’s Arms? Silently, he watched.

Roderick crossed the centre of the room, stopped. “Know that neither I nor anyone in this building will threaten you. Please, I understand you’re confused, but there’s no need to conceal yourself.”

He said, “Trust me.”

“
Trust
you?” In a snap decision that surged ahead of nausea, fear and incomprehension, Ecko exploded from under the desk. “You work for Grey, don’tcha? You plug me into this shit, you question me, I tell you everything, then it’s Experimentation Time?” He leapt four steps and was on the table, crouched like a confrontation. “Yeah, well, I’ve seen through your little ruse. Bring it on, asswipe, let’s see whatcha got.”

“Answers.” The Bard was neither startled nor slow; he spread his long hands in a shrug. “I’m welcoming you, trying to help. Your anger and disorientation are completely understandable – I’d like to try and make this easy, if I can. Sketch out the basics.”

Ecko bared his teeth. “Don’t turn your fuckin’ vocal charms on me or I’ll use your skull for a piss-pot.”

“I know you’re confused –”

“Confused! You got five seconds to tell me what’s what or I start breaking shit. An’ you can begin with those
moons.
”

“The light’s making you queasy?”

“The light,” Ecko said, “is reflected sunlight –”

“The light,” the Bard said with a half-smile, “comes from the Gods.”

“The moons are gods?” He had to be kidding. “That’s one hell of an interrogation technique. What, d’you sacrifice virgins to the
sun
in your spare time?”

“Round here, I’d only have to trade for them first.” His supple voice made the statement rich with amusement.

“You’re a fuckin’ scream,” Ecko said. “Now. You tell me what’s goin’ on or I start burning shit
down.
”

“Take it easy, there, my friend.” The Bard’s tone was humorous, gentle. “There’s no need to be burning anything. I understand this is bewildering, and I came in to help make you welcome – firstly to The Wanderer, purveyor of fine ales, and currently in the city of Roviarath.”

Without taking his eyes from Ecko, he gave a half bow, spreading his hands, and his expression flickered mischief. His face was lean and bore a tracery of age lines; his eyes were violet and so long lashed he looked like he wore make-up. Watching him, Ecko had no clue how old he was.

But he was still speaking. “Roviarath is our culture’s pivot and lynchpin, the heart of our trade. All around it are the Varchinde, the open Grasslands. Beyond that, I come from the north, the Khavan Circle. The Kuanne to the west is lifeless; the Archipelago to the east scarcely populated. To the south, the Red Desert is home to nomads, a hundred banners with a hundred cultures. They’re a short-lived people, but fiery.”

As the Bard spoke, so Ecko’s surroundings took on shape and form, became more solid. The nausea began to ease. Yet the map the man drew made the whispering realisation louder... this was already far too complex, far too real...

Real? Chrissakes, this was insane – even more insane than two fucking god-moons that disobeyed every physical law...

They’d never make him believe this shit!

“Okay, smart-ass, what’s the time: what year is it?” Panic in his throat, Ecko pressed for flaws, watching the Bard, the room. “Year? Jeez, three hundred and sixty-five an’ a quarter days, one cycle of the seasons?”

“The Count of Time will be different for you – perhaps that’s no real surprise. Here, we call the seasons a ‘return’ – a Return of the Spring – broken down into cycles and halfcycles, twenty days and ten, each measured by the Moons –”

“All right, already; enough.” Ecko tried another attack, pressing for the flaw, the crack, anything that would bring the walls down. “So – what – I just ‘woke up’ here?” He snorted. “An’ I’m s’posed to think this shit is
real
?”

“I’m supposed to think it’s not?” The Bard sat back, lines of amusement creasing around his eyes. He stretched long legs under the table. “Perhaps you aren’t here. Are you a pathwalker, or a lucid dreamer? Or has someone placed you here for a purpose?”

A purpose... the understanding was a fist in the face.

Oh, for chrissakes.

You get this right, mate, an’ she’s promised she’ll have Eliza fix you up proper...

Ecko found he’d forgotten to breathe. In the ice calm of realisation, everything froze perfectly into place.

You don’t understand how important this is – an’ I ain’t explainin’ it, not now. Behave yourself.

It hadn’t been a recce – it’d been a fucking
test.

No radio, no rifle. No back up. A piece of rare and experimental robotics that he couldn’t hope to take down. A top, corporate, City location where gunfire would be ignored by the cops.

How could he have been so fucking dumb?

He was plugged in all right, but not to some drone entertainment game, some amateur role play...
This
was the real fucking deal.

This was the full-on Virtual Rorschach, the mutt’s nuts, the fucking cat’s pyjamas. Designed by the Boss’s pet psychotherapist Eliza, controlled and run by Collator’s massive mainframe – a perfect blend of human instinct and mathematical algorithm. This “world” was made for him and from him – it was the extrapolated fractal landscape of his own brainwaves, a completely functional and unique reality, mathematically remodelling itself around his every decision and reaction.

In short? It was his head.

And he was stuck in it.

The
hypocrites.
The lousy, rat-shagging, mother-fucking
bastards
– they’d sold him straight down the Thames! They’d flogged his soul for thirty pieces of ammunition!
How
could he have been this stupid?

“I see you’re seeking your truth.” The voice was calming. Ecko focused on Roderick’s expression – wariness, compassion, concern. “The culture shock can be a hard thing to assimilate –”

“
Culture
shock?”

Naked, black-toothed savagery made the Bard start back. Ecko came off the table, his adrenals swift as a pounce. He had the man by the shirt and was snarling in his face. “They didn’t fucking do this to me, they didn’t
do
this! How the hell do I get back out?”

“I’m sorry...”

“Shit!” Throwing the Bard back against the couch, he lashed out with a foot and crashed the table into splinters. He spun back, targeters flashing.

“This is
insane
!”

Roderick leaned forwards to lay a hand on his arm. “Please. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you wish. And if you let me, I can help you.”

“Get the hell off of me.” Ecko shook off the contact like a poisonous insect, backed up. It was too much, swamping him. He was sinking in insanity and disbelief. “I need – security. I need – my Tech. I need my fucking head examining. That wasn’t meant to be funny. Jesus, I don’t even
know
what I need. Why the fuck would I wanna stay here?”

A ghost of a grin flickered on the Bard’s face.

“You’ll have to stay somewhere,” he said. “This building was given to me by the Lord CityWarden of Amos. It’s a tool, a catalyst and a nexus. And it has very good beer.” When Ecko said nothing, he continued, “Look, I’ve spent my life seeking answers to certain questions – and, slowly, they have all come here, they’ve... coalesced. And now you’re here too.” When Ecko still glowered, the grin spread. “Where else would you wish to be? We ride fate, here. Tonight, we’re in Roviarath. Tomorrow morning, we find a new location, another city perhaps. And the day after that...” The sentence ended in limitless possibility.

“That’s bullshit,” Ecko said, “you can’t just fucking
teleport
. What about your water, and –” he stopped short as he realised that if this was a constructed reality, the pub, like the moons, could do whatever the hell it wanted “– stuff?”

That made Roderick chuckle. “Our water comes with us. We move just before dawn and nine nights of the halfcycle it’s to somewhere we can trade. Occasionally, though, we do get a surprise. Eight days ago, we found ourselves in the ruins at Tusien, all our customers had been dead a thousand returns. Very bad for business.”

“Christ – they’ve dumped me in The Magic Faraway Pub.” Cursing, Ecko spun from the couch to kick at table bits and pace the room like a caged creature. He eyed his surroundings with a growing sneer: no weapons, no plastics, no electronics. In fact – he noticed this after a moment – no metal.

This was
insane.

Eliza’s Virtual Rorschach was supposed to be
therapy,
for chrissakes – a long-term, total-immersion solution for the Boss’s more difficult personality cases. He didn’t know how it worked, but he knew that they’d clock his every reaction, and he knew that somewhere, there was gonna be some path or puzzle, something he had to solve or achieve or piece together. Maybe he could find it, get it the fuck sorted and get out – and maybe if he did it fast enough, he might even make it back with his brain intact.

Before they
fixed
him.

Chrissakes
.

Once upon a time, Mom had made his body tamper-proof, unbreakable. Hell, maybe she’d made his head the same.

Roderick said, “You haven’t told me your name.”

“I’m Ecko, silent ‘G’.” He stopped his pacing by the desk and picked up a random piece of curly paper. He exhaled a tiny touch of flame. The paper flared eagerly then crumbled to black ash. “Though you really wouldn’t get the gag.”

“Ecko.” The Bard thought for a minute then continued, “You’re –”

A smart rap on the door cut him off.

Ecko turned, half crouched, his cloak mantling, ash scattering, but the Bard extended a calming hand.

“It’s all right,” he said. “That’ll be dinner. Having no idea what you eat, we thought it best to start simple.”

Recoiling, biting back a sarcastic response, Ecko stared at the door, his oculars cycling.

It opened to reveal a young woman with a tray propped on one hip. She was curvy, with shining brown hair and a cleavage you could’ve parked a bike in. Like the Bard, she had no enhancements, no weapons, no metal. There was something impertinent in her stance.

Lugan would’ve been all over her like a tattoo.

For a split second, Ecko had a vision of the young woman slapping the huge biker round the face. He almost grinned. Then the grin fractured and broke – Lugan was a million miles away, in another world, walled apart on the outside of Ecko’s skull.

Lugan was lost.

Lugan had sold him the fuck out.

Lugan was in deep
shit
when Ecko got outta here.

He shook his fingers and the last flakes of ash drifted to the floor.

The woman said, “What did you do to my table?” It was the same voice that Ecko had heard earlier.

“Karine.” The Bard stood up. “Meet Ecko. All things considered, he’s adjusting remarkably swiftly. Perhaps, when you have a moment...?” Roderick left the question unfinished but the young woman seemed to know what he meant.

“When do I ever get a moment?” She put the tray down on the arm of the couch, then straightened up to treat Ecko to a broad wink. “I run this building, and don’t let him tell you otherwise.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Roderick said, eyeing the rafters.

The tray contained some sort of pottery bowl that steamed with a surprisingly rich, meaty scent, and a hunk of something that looked like real bread, grainy and rough. Ecko had an odd urge to pick the bread up, break it, understand its texture. His belly growled, distressingly human.

Karine chuckled. “Don’t worry, you can eat it safely, we’re not going to try and poison you or anything.” She treated Roderick to an arched brow. “Though
you
are going to have to haggle for the table. And when you’ve picked up the bits, you can turf out the big room under the roof. You know the one. It’s got all your
souvenirs
in it.”

The Bard grinned at the gibe.

She harrumphed at him, then said, “There’s also more news... But that can wait for now.”

Roderick shot her a look. Her responding gesture was tiny, but Ecko’s targeters tracked it like prey. He picked up a second piece of paper from the desk, and turned it between his fingers.

Karine said, “I’ll come back in a bit, make sure you’re settling in okay, let you meet the others. In the meantime, don’t let this one talk your ears off. He’s a good man, but he is a bit crazed.”

With a twitch of her hips, she was gone, hooking a foot to pull the door shut after her.

After a moment’s quiet, Ecko said, the words biting, “‘Crazed’ huh? Maybe you’re the one in therapy.”

The Bard picked up a piece of the table, then threw himself down on the couch.

“I was given this building because I believe in a certain future – a vision, I suppose. And when I found you, I brought you in here because I believe that you’re a part of that vision. That future.” He held Ecko’s black eyes for a moment. “I’ve seen you before.”

...A path or a puzzle, something he had to solve or piece together...

A chill of inevitability skittered down Ecko’s spine, then a flare of anger like panic, like the closing of a trap.

“Fantastic. So – what? You gotta prophecy that says I kick the ass of the God of Evil? A Major McNasty that’s about to wake up? How ’bout a World-Shaking War?” His sarcasm was vicious. “Where do I start?”

With a wry chuckle the Bard replied, “Sadly, it’s not that simple. There is no ‘prophecy’ – I wish there was. There is no ‘God of Evil’ – no ‘Major Nasty’ – not really one that does house calls. And the last World-Shaking War was a very long time ago.” He stood up, shot a rueful glance at the remains of the table and then shrugged. “If it’d been that easy, this would already be over.”

“
What
would be already be over?”

“That,” he said, “is what I’ve spent my life finding out.”

“Jesus shit.” Ecko stared. His stomach grumbled again. He ignored it. “You dunno, do you? Loremaster, my ass.”