Like some surreal and hastily erected film set, the tavern had plonked itself slap-bang in the Monument’s centre. The great, grey stones, now lightless, were tumbled about its outer walls. Its doors were open, its windows shining with warmth and light and welcome – it looked both wondrous and shallow, like a tourist attraction.
Seeing it, Ecko knew he was floundering, that this reality was twisting round him. After the glory of the Sical, its temptation and validation, after the superboosting of his adrenaline, he felt as if it was wrong – as if, should he just lean forwards and push, the whole damned lot would go over like some sun-cracked billboard, the grass and sky with it.
And he would be home.
So I won, already. Rescued the girl. Toasted the bad guy. Blew the shit outta the base. Can I go now?
In the foregarden, Roderick the Bard was standing with his hair wet and his arms folded across his chest. Something about him had changed, some touch of steel in his jaw, some cold light in his amethyst eyes.
“Ecko!” As they walked down the bank towards the building, he came to meet them, his expression lit with a fierce, flaring hope. For a moment, Ecko thought he was going to be embraced and backed the fuck up, hands spread wide. The sign creaked, predictably, over his head.
Way too surreal.
He blinked and had to make an effort to speak.
“Don’t even think it.”
But the Bard was laughing. He had spread his hands wide and he was laughing at the very sky, at the stones, the batshit moons. He laughed as though nothing could ever threaten him again.
He was a barking loony.
“And here we are,” Roderick said, “in the very Monument itself, rescued in the nick of time. And here, we meet again, on the far side of tragedy, and with the world changed beyond recognition. I don’t know what wonder has occurred to bring us here, but I trust in The Wanderer and I’m glad we’re all safe. Come in, be welcome.” He nodded at the others, gave Triqueta a momentary, slightly confused second glance. “You’re weary, injured –”
“Nice timing,” Ecko said. Looking up at the windows, the roof where he’d sat as the tavern first moved, he couldn’t wrap his head round it. His head was too full of the Sical, of Maugrim, of home. He heard himself say, “How’s it going?”
“What’s the phrase you use? It’s all ‘gone to hell in a hardcart’.” The Bard was still laughing. He looked about them at the surrounding stones. One of them had actually tumbled through the garden wall, a visual distortion that was making Ecko’s sense of disorientation worse.
“Yet we’re fortunate, in many ways,” Roderick said, “We live, and we’re still free.”
“Free.” Ecko snorted. “That’ll be the day.”
“I’ve missed you too.”
“I’m touched.”
As the Bard gestured them inside, Ecko ducked through the door and his skin betrayed him. As if his outer self, at least, acknowledged the tavern’s existence, it was shifting, changing – splotching from the shadows of the Monument to the rich browns of the building’s greeting and comfort.
He found a table, crouched there at the room’s centre. Warily, he eyed the walls, the artefacts, the weapons, the shields. It looked fake, like it would scorch and burn through any second, like the whole thing would dissolve into smoking, charred holes.
“Well!” Karine was behind the bar, arms folded beneath her breasts and a look of mock disapproval on her face. “And what time do you call this?”
“Dinner time,” Ecko told her, reflexively. He managed a grin.
She tutted. “Get your feet off the table.”
The others were coming further into the building, looking around them as though they, too, could not believe they were here.
“We’re back,” Triqueta said. “We’re really back. We’ve walked the halls of the Rhez itself, but we’re here. For love of every God, someone get me an ale.”
“Make that two.” Chuckling, Redlock unslung his pack, dropped it, looked for a chair. He carefully felt the ruin of his nose. Then, with a deep, determined breath, he crunched it back into place, swore. Blinked water from his eyes.
Behind them, Amethea had fallen onto the bench under the window. She sat with her head in her hands, unmoving.
The very last of the sun blazed silver from her hair.
“Ecko, Triqueta,” Roderick said. “I cannot express how much your return means to me – to all of us.” Karine snorted, grinned. “I understand you have many tales and I am... more than eager to listen – but I fear you are weary beyond endurance. I will aim to be patient.” He glanced up as Kale emerged from the kitchen with a steaming leather jug and a handful of mugs. When the Bard turned back, his expression was all mischief. “If I can. There is so much I must tell you also. The world has changed around us. Radically so.”
“Changed?” The word was thrown like a stone. Amethea looked at him, her pale face in shadow, her navy eyes dark as the sky. “The Monument is fallen. The Powerflux is awake. Maugrim may be dead, but...” As Kale silently poured her a mug of herbal, she wrapped her hands around it as though it were the most precious thing in the world. “We’ve won a fight – but that’s all. This is only the beginning.”
“We’ve won more than you know,” Roderick said. “If Roviarath still stands, then, I think, at least half of the plan has failed.”
Amethea said, aghast, “Half?”
His smile was oddly ironic, “As you say, this is only the beginni–”
Without warning, the night was shattered by a distant bellow of thunder.
The taproom gaped and then scrabbled, going for weapons and windows, calling for answers. The noise was loud, the sudden roar of something gunned to pain and fury. It was abrupt, and harsh, and close. It dropped a note, another.
The mica in the windows shook.
“It’s the Sical,” Amethea said softly. Her herbal tankard slid through her fingers to bounce from the floor, liquid splashing a great, dark stain in the sawdust. Her face haunted, she’d turned to the window behind her. “We can’t let this happen, we can’t!”
Roderick mouthed, Sical, confused.
Triqueta had sprung to the bench by Amethea, in her hand a short, terhnwood blade she’d swiped from the wall. Her face was sharp, eager. Redlock rose to his feet with his brown eyes blazing. He drew his axes, then dissolved into coughing, blood staining the back of his hand.
But Ecko was grinning. “For chrissakes, that’s not the fucking Sical.”
Suddenly, the tavern was real, solid – snapped into focus by the incoming sound. Ecko was at the door, his heart pounding, pounding. There was a certain inevitable symmetry to this – the feeling, again, of the pattern repeating itself. This was right, somehow, it was the final realisation.
Faster than a thought, he grabbed the handles and threw both doors fully open.
“Sical, my ass!” he said.
The noise grew worse. In the rippling moonlight, on a dead straight heading, was a single, glaring, white eye – screaming towards them out of smoke-scented dark grass.
“What the rhez...?” Redlock stared like an idiot, then hands tightened round his axe shafts. “This time, you bastard. This time you’re not coming back.”
“Fuck me.” Ecko was almost laughing. “The ratfuck son of a bitch’s got a Thundergod!”
“You know that creature?” Redlock watched it closely.
“You’d better fucking believe it.” Ecko grinned at the oncoming cyclopean beast, the red lights in his eyes flashing. “Jesus Harry Christ,” he muttered to himself. “Don’t bad guys ever die when you kill ’em?” He moved to stand in the doorway, arms folded, his cloak hem billowing in the dawn breeze.