And all hell broke loose about them.
Above him, a fragment of the stone wall tumbled to shatter upon the floor. Ecko jumped, half turned, but ahead of him came a rasping grind of stone – the floor was sliding, like tomb lids scraping from their places. His nostrils caught the scent of burned flesh.
He yowled at the shattered roof, “Yeah? Bring it the fuck on!”
But he was drowned out by a second crash of falling masonry. They had no cover, nowhere to run – they found themselves surrounded now by the hazy outlines of two dozen figures in flickering, fiery robes, surrounded by their rising chant. As if they sensed him looking, one raised its face to smile at him – its mouth was full of flame.
Tarvi’s vision: he would have burned her to death.
The fire pillar was taking form as the sounds caressed it. In a moment, the strange chanting reached a crescendo and came to an abrupt, expectant stop. Hazy figures raised their hands in ecstatic worship as a coalescence began.
Ecko was transfixed. He hung on to Lugan’s lighter like an anchor, but he could only stare.
Cloaked in heat and power and beauty, impossibly tall and crystalline in gracefulness, bewinged like an angel but blistering their skins with heat, the flame-creature rose incandescent, spreading arms and wings.
With an inarticulate cry, Ecko was on his knees as if his every dream had manifest for his fulfilment.
Redlock backed, wide-eyed and unsure, pushing Triqueta with him. The heat made them raise their arms to shield their faces.
Above them, the drifting figures began to chant again, softly. Slowly, they rose, their hair and robes had become sparks and flame.
Insanely, in the middle of the furnace, Ecko’s oculars caught movement. A figure – pale, female, desperate – crawling behind the broken base of a statue. She was curled about her belly, watching the wavering heat of the Sical with an expression of terror – and a peculiar, savage sense of righteousness.
It spoke to them, in a soft, warm voice that crackled with power.
Promised fuel, you. Need, I.
“I... We...” Triqueta stumbled over words, staggered by this glorious fire-creature that crisped the hairs on their arms. “You’re... You’re trapped? Enslaved?” It was a brave shot. “Let us help you.”
Its head angled towards her, its eyes the blazing white of melting metal. It had no features, just a body of flame.
Hunger, I.
The spinning figures turned faster, becoming a wheel of sparks all around them, their chant continuing to circle. The Sical paid them no attention.
Awakened, I. Give fuel, you.
With a shriek, the wheel of ghosts stopped turning, and the figures swooped like vultures, hands reaching and faces stretched with glee. Redlock slashed madly, but burning claws caressed Ecko’s cheek, setting off explosions in his skull and making him crumble further to the floor. The fire breath of the spirits yammered in his face and his head started to spin up into the air with them.
“Cedetine!” Incredibly, the cry had come from the cowering girl – she was obviously hurt, but her sheer determination rang from the walls. Near her, there was a smaller brazier, a stone bowl set into the floor. As Ecko hauled himself back to his feet, the girl shoved her bare hand into it and hurled the contents at the manically swooping figures.
“Shit!” he shouted, and ducked.
Redlock and Triqueta fell back.
Bright sparks of fury struck the flaming, ghostly shape and it began to really burn, its mouth open in a shout of glee.
Or was it pain?
Or was it both?
For a moment, it raged incandescent, and Ecko watched with horrified fascination.
There was a deafening blast, and the light exploded. Beside it, another ignited, and another. Their crackling voices screeched to a climax of power – and they were taken by their own conflagration.
Aftershocks rocked the walls. More of them split and tumbled to shatter on the hard stone floor.
The Sical paused.
But the girl’s voice rose amid the noise and the raging, a rallying cry – a cry of such pain – and such strength...
“To Cedetine, World Goddess and Mother, I seal this Chapel by Fire. To Cedetine, World Goddess and Mother, I seal this Chapel by Light. To Cedetine, World Goddess and Mother, I seal this Chapel by –”
“By blood, little priestess. Yours.”
In the sudden, shocking silence, the voice could only belong to Maugrim.
The fire spirits were white ash, drifting downwards like chaff. Above the softly crackling Sical, they rose once more, carried by its heat.
“By right of foresight – by right of doing what no one else can.”
Triqueta had run to the girl.
Redlock’s tension was palpable – he was itching to fight.
But Ecko stared, stunned.
The man’s accent had been pure South London – and his clothes...
He was wild haired, bearded, his denim cut-down and oil-stained jeans more familiar to Ecko than anything he’d seen. They looked like the lock-up, like Lugan – like home. As Maugrim walked to meet them, firelight glittered from multiple silver rings.
Across his shoulders, he had six-plus feet of heavy steel chain.
The compulsion of the Sical was still tugging at his oculars, his nerves, his heart – temptation, validation, failure – he needed to know what it was.
Ecko wanted to speak to the greaser, its master, somehow reach him and ask him – for chrissakes – so many questions. How are you here? What happened to you? Is this real or in my fucking head? From the lock-up and familiar, oil-stained denim, he had a sense of aching kinship that held him silent – because he had no idea what to say.
By right of foresight – by right of doing what no one else can.
Everything seemed to have closed on this moment, on the silver rings on Maugrim’s fingers, on the white eyes of the Sical.
But Ecko was silent a moment too long – and Eliza took the chance from him.
He saw Redlock advance with his axes gleaming in his hands. He saw Maugrim unloop the chain from his shoulders and began to spin it, fantastically dextrous figure-eights, flashing in the firelight.
The axeman would chop him into fish food, chain or no chain. For just a moment, his instinct screamed at him to go after Redlock.
He needed to know!
But his eyes were still drawn to the burning form of the Sical.
Hunger, I. Need, I.
Its flame-limned arms opened towards the writhe of the stalactite high above and it blazed with the promise of supremacy.
Around them, the stone army ground into life.
27: SICAL
THE MONUMENT
The flame-angel burned, mighty as a Fawkes-night detonation, hurling its fire into the cavern like a shout. Sparks leapt from it, the wash of heat was incredible.
It was glorious, compelling and fascinating and destructive. Fed by the stone capacitor from above and by blood from below, it was the heart of the fractal pattern, the single image that would repeat itself endlessly, consuming, expanding.
Tarvi had shown him a taste of its glory.
Ecko’s adrenals were awakening: he could feel the buzz in his kidneys, the thrill starting to sparkle in his blood. He was poised on a blade-edge of indecision – to take down the axeman, to free the creature and burn this whole fucking mockery to ash...
Turn back to page one!
But Lugan’s lighter was cool in his hand. The elemental was fatal. It would make his program fall to pieces around him, code crashing on the screen he’d never seen...