Echoes Read online

  Vann turned to follow his pragmatic side, but his eyes were drawn to how smooth the body of the guitar was, the winking of the light along its surface. It called to him like a siren's song – he could almost hear it in the silence of the hidden chamber. One touch, it begged. One touch is all I desire. Vann hesitated, deliberated, his heart pounding in his ears.

  Just the body, not the strings. He will have done no wrong so long as he didn't touch the strings. Because that would technically be playing, and playing a guitar was punishable by execution. But guitars and lutes had similar body structures, and it wasn't against any law to touch a lute.

  Buoyed by that logic, he slowly approached the dias, as if afraid the instrument would rear up and bite. Slowly, he reached out, his hand shaking. His fingers made contact with the guitar's body. The surface was smooth as a polished gemstone, almost icy to the touch. Vann let his fingers linger for a moment.

  Blue smoke began to emanate from the instrument. It was only a single coil at first, rolling off the neck, but then it began to emanate from the frets, the tuning knobs, the pickups. Vann recoiled, taking his hand off the instrument, but it was too late. Whatever he'd unleashed was coming, and there was nothing he could to do stop it.

  The smoke roiled and collected itself into a shape that Vann recognized as human – or at least the upper half of one. The smoke formed a human body from the waist up with two arms and a head, but no legs. The shape began to become more distinct. It wore a tunic with an ornate pattern, metal spikes jutting up from the shoulders. It's hair was long and pale white, almost down to it's waist.

  Then Vann heard it. The voice. The one he'd heard whisper in the library the previous day. And it was coming from the strange apparition.

  “Come on, Branna, why are you waking me up already?” the ghost said. It rolled its shoulders, and Vann noticed that its arms were wiry and strong. “You literally did this whole song and dance yesterday. You're supposed to leave my ass alone for the next fifty or sixty years. What, you have another little sprog that you forgot about, so you got to let him in on the family secret too?” He snorted. “Then again, wouldn't be the first time.”

  Vann simply stared, his eyes bugging out and his jaw open.

  The ghost cocked his head and turned around. “What's the matter? Cat got your...”

  The ghost trailed off as he saw Vann standing there gobsmacked. His eyes narrowed. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He looked at the empty tunnel passage behind Vann, then looked back to Vann. Slowly, he raised a finger and pointed it at him.

  “You are not who I was expecting.”

  Chapter Two – Running Free

  Vann took a step back as the ghost continued to study him. The blue apparition had an older face, his hairline receding somewhat despite it's excessive length. His jaw was angular and square, his eyebrows arched so symmetrically they looked as thought they'd been drawn on. There were lines on his cheeks, though whether they were from age or were just how the apparition's face appeared he couldn't say. The ghost's voice was slightly raspy, but carried a weight and strength to it.

  “How did you get down here?” the ghost asked.

  Vann finally found his words and answered. “T-there was a bookcase upstairs...” He pointed at the ceiling. “In the library. It was out of place, and I m-moved it and-”

  “Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,” the ghost said, waving his arms back and forth. “Hold on. Time out. There was a bookcase?” Vann nodded. The ghost grew livid. “So you're telling me that I've been stuck down here for three hundred years, me, the Great Enemy, Rorzan Jetta fucking Diavolo!” He flitted across the room, his face right in front of Vann. “And you're telling me that the only thing that was keeping me hidden was a fucking… bookcase!” He scoffed and turned around, arms flailing in frustration. “I am insulted, dammit!”

  Vann felt cold fear shoot through him, as if he was rooted to the floor by ice crystals. “You're... you're him? You're Rorzan?”

  “The one and only,” the ghost of Rorzan said. He floated up, hands akimbo. “Now then, what are we going to do with you?”

  The whole scenario was being processed sluggishly by Vann's brain. “W-what do you mean?” Was he going to be smote by the ghost of the first Metal Lord? Could ghosts even do that? What exactly could ghosts do? Why was there a ghost in the first place?

  “Right, so...” Rorzan clapped his hands together, and Vann wondered how the action made a sound when he was incorporeal. “Long story short, here's what's going to happen. While it seems like the Branna clan were very lax with their overall security, which makes me wonder how the fuck anyone didn't find this place for three hundred years!” Rorzan trailed off into incoherent murmuring for a few moments, then composed himself. “Right, anyways. I know for a fact that the Lords pass a rune down the family line that goes off if someone touches this thing. Fandar Branna Sung it on to my guitar yesterday when he brought the Lord-to-be down here.”

  It was then that Vann noticed one of the markings on the guitar was glowing white hot. It was the only rune on the guitar body that looked vaguely familiar, from some old Papreon script rather than the angular language the rest of the instrument was inscribed with. “That one?” he asked, pointing to it.

  Rorzan nodded. “Which means that he knows you're down here. Which is bad news for you, unfortunately.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Rorzan's arched an eyebrow. “It's a guitar, one of the most powerful instruments on the planet. It's my guitar. With a piece of me in it, though nobody knows about that bit. A piece of me that can talk to you, show you a different path, and the Lords... well, they're not too fond of anyone or anything that threatens their lockdown on all the power around here.” He pointed at Vann. “Whether you like it or not, that now includes you. Welcome to the family, kiddo!”

  It felt like the floor had dropped out underneath Vann, and he was falling, down into a dark depth where there could be no escape. “No,” he said, taking a step backwards. “No, no, no. I'll leave, put the bookcase back, and seal this place up. If Lord Branna asks, I'll just explain it was a mistake.”

  Rorzan sighed and clapped a palm to his face. “Even if you do, it won't matter. They'll still kill you.”

  Vann shook his head frantically. “No! I'm Yilon's best friend, and I didn't mean to come down here. This was a mistake!”

  Rorzan put his hands on his hips – well, as much of his hips as he still had. “I'm not going to force you to do anything, kiddo, but here are your choices at this moment. One, you stay here, in which case either Branna comes down here and smites your ass himself, or he has the Guard skewer you to the wall with spears. Two, you leave me here and try to run on your own, you might live.” He pointed down at the guitar on the pedestal. “Or three, you take me with you, run like the First Gods themselves were breathing down your neck, and I’ll get you to safety. Your choice.”

  Vann stood, halfway between the pedestal and the entrance to the secret room, his heart hammering in his ears. On some level, he knew that Rorzan was right. Yilon might protest, but he had clearly stumbled onto something he was supposed to be nowhere near. He'd get sympathy from the Lord-to-be, but not from the High Lord himself. And the latter made the decisions, not the former.

  What did he have to lose?

  Vann grabbed the guitar off the pedestal. It weighed slightly more than a lute, but there was a density to it. He quickly hooked the strap over his shoulders, turning it so the instrument was nestled against his back. He took a deep breath. “Let's do it.”

  “Yes! Excellent!” Rorzan floated into his field of view, gesturing frantically to the passage. “Now, get going, quick! Oh, fuck yes, I'm back in business!”

  Vann hurried down the passageway, running as fast as he could with the instrument on his back. Years of work in the palace had left him with a strong physique, and he was able to move rather quickly. He pounded up the stone steps without missing a beat, hurrying up into the library. For a moment he cons
idered moving the bookcase back and sealing up the passage, then realized there would be no point and kept moving. Rorzan floated alongside him, looking around the library and shaking his head. “I cannot believe it. The library behind a bookcase. It's just so... tacky.”

  “Complain about the injustice of it all later,” Vann muttered as he yanked open the heavy door to the passage outside. He hurried through, and turned to the left to head for the front entrance. “You said you'd get me out of here-”

  A squad of palace guards hurried around the corner, with Fandar Branna himself in the lead. They all stopped short when they saw Vann, Fandar throwing out his arms to halt his men. The moment hung suspended as everyone stared at one another.

  Fandar took a step forward. “Vann, don't be a fool. Put the guitar down, and walk away.”

  “Just a heads up, there's a guy with a crossbow at the other end of the hall behind you,” Rorzan said idly. “You drop it, he'll put a quarral in your back. Don't fall for it. I have not spent three hundred years trapped in that room just to have the first non-royal I meet die two steps into the escape.”

  Vann looked behind him, and saw the sniper clearly in the middle of the hall. The man with the crossbow froze. He'd been really quiet, and obviously hadn't expected to be seen.

  Vann looked back. Fandar's expression had darkened, like a storm rolling in from the sea. In that moment, Vann saw his fate clearly written in the face of the High Lord. So he did the only thing he could.

  He turned around and ran like hell towards the sniper. Fandar barked an order. Rorzan hovered alongside Vann as he ran. “Get ready to duck,” he said. “Some harps in their ranks!”

  Vann heard the plings of harp strings being plucked. A bolt of magic zipped past him, scorching the tile black. He stumbled, then threw himself to the side as the sniper fired, the crossbow bolt missing him by inches. He found his footing again, and blew past the sniper at the end of the hallway and took a left.

  “Bunch of incompetent morons,” Rorzan cackled. “Bet these guys haven't seen action in their whole careers!” He turned around and frowned. “Where are you going?”

  “Trying to find another way to the front entrance,” Vann said, taking a few corners at full speed and bowling over a serving girl carrying a stack of towels.

  “Oh, forget the front entrance,” Rorzan said. He pointed at the four-way intersection up ahead. “Take a right up there, I know a shortcut.” Vann followed the direction, and Rorzan kept calling out instructions that took him into the back passages of the palace usually used by servants. “Great, now take a right up ahead!”

  Vann did, and stopped short as he almost ran slapbang into a brick wall. “Wait, what?” Rorzan said. He flew up to the wall, looking it up and down as though it had personally slighted him. “When the hell did this get put in? There should be an escape tunnel here!”

  “I think they blocked it up a hundred years or so ago,” Vann said, breathing heavily.

  “Well, crap.” Rorzan turned and put a hand on his chin. “Let me think, let me think...”

  “There they are!” Both of them whirled to see the palace guards charging down the passage.

  “Think faster!” Vann said as he took off again, using his own mental map of the palace to get out of the tight, cramped servant passages and into the main hallways.

  “Is the upper landing in the main foyer still a thing?” Rorzan asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “Head there! I know what we can do!”

  One of the palace guard lunged out of a hallway and tried to tackle Vann. He missed, but managed to get a hand around Vann's ankle and trip him. Vann faceplanted onto the tile, the shock of pain stunning him for a second. He kicked out with his foot, hearing something crunch as his boot hit something soft. “Sorry!” he managed as he scrambled away. He knew of an easy way to get to the upper foyer. He made a turn in the passage up ahead, then made for a supply closet that had a second door and allowed him to skip several passages entirely.

  He threw open the door to the closet, ran inside, and stopped dead.

  Both Lady Branna and the guard who was fucking her froze. Elna was sitting on a table, her dress hiked up to allow the guard easy access. She'd yanked the fabric around her chest to the side, freeing one of her breasts.

  Rorzan started laughing. “Well, at least this hasn't changed!”

  Vann knew his face must have beet red. He muttered a quick, “Don't let me interrupt,” and hurried on, blowing past the pair and out the door on the other side. A part of him had always known that Lady Branna had other liaisons, but seeing it for himself just made him feel dirty. Not as dirty as actually being inside her himself, but still rather unpleasant.

  He ran out onto the second-floor landing above the main foyer. Below him he could see the front entrance, already blocked by a squad of palace guards. “Oh, come on!” Rorzan said. Vann looked up. The ghost was hovering in front of the wall on the landing above the main doors, pulling at his hair in frustration. “Why did they take the bloody window out? Having light in here made this whole room feel bigger!”

  Vann heard a shout from behind him and turned. The guards were pouring into the hallway behind him, and Fandar was with them. “Uh, Rorzan?”

  Rorzan turned and made a face. He looked down at Vann, then beckoned him. “Get over here, quick!”

  The guards on the ground floor had taken notice of him now, and Vann hurried to the wall as they started up the stairs from ground level. “We're trapped!” he yelled at Rorzan.

  “Not yet we're not,” Rorzan said. “Grab the pick in the strings near the tuning knobs!”

  “The what?” Vann unslung the guitar and looked at the head. There was something tucked between the strings he hadn't noticed before, a small, thin, triangular object about an inch long.

  “The pick!” Rorzan said. “You play the strings with it, hurry!”

  Vann yanked it out, the motion making a soft ping noise. He held it between his fingers, staring at the encroaching palace guard. “Now what?”

  “Okay, now,” Rorzan said. “Take the pick, strum the guitar really hard, and yell something.”

  “What do you mean?” Vann asked.

  “I mean exactly what I said,” Rorzan said, hovering above Vann. “Hit every string and Sing a note, any note. And do it fast!” The palace guards were kneeling down, brandishing harps to Sing a barrage of magic missiles at him.

  “I can't Sing though!” Vann protested.

  “That doesn't matter!” Rorzan said, his voice sounding panicked. “Just yell something, anything, and play! Scream your heart out!”

  Vann saw the guards open their mouths to Sing. In moments he'd be blown apart by powerful bolts of magic. He had no other option. He raised the pick high and brought it down on the guitar, screaming his fear to the sky.

  The world shook.

  A wave of force blasted out of the guitar, throwing Vann off balance. It shot out and bowled over every palace guard in the foyer, and picked up Fandar Branna and flung him backwards into the hallway, turning head over heels as he went. The wall behind him was blasted outward, bricks and mortar flung into the air like they'd been flicked by a giant. Vann immediately felt as though his body weighed a ton, and sank to his knees. Sweat beaded on his forehead and trailed down his face as the afternoon sunlight beat down on him through the hole he'd blown in the palace wall.

  “Holy shit,” Rorzan said. “Awesome!” He floated down in front of Vann, part of him vanishing into the floor. “And you're still alive! Double awesome!”

  “Wait, what?” Vann said, glaring at him as the feeling of weight passed and strength began to flow back into his body.

  Rorzan made a face. “Okay, so, full disclosure, there was a non-zero chance that that maneuver you just did could've killed you.”

  “Like how non-zero?”

  Rorzan held up his fingers a small distance apart. “Slim!” Vann glowered at him. “Okay, maybe about twenty, thirty percent tops. Tops!” He gestur
ed to the guitar. “You just let loose with a giant blast of uncontrolled, untamed magic amplified by the most powerful instrument in the world. It's going to leave you feeling a little weird. But, if you're as good as I think you are, you should be shaking off the jitters any moment now!”

  Vann planted the body of the guitar on the ground and used it to push himself to his feet. The palace guards were rolling around on the ground, moaning and clutching their chests. He regretted having to do it, but he'd been faced with no other choice. “Now what?”

  “Over here!” Rorzan floated over to the edge of the hole and gestured to the outside. There was a cloth banner flapping in the wind. “Climb down this to the ground outside.”

  “Are you nuts?” Vann said. He peered out the hole to the palace grounds outside. “It's a thirty foot drop!”

  “No, it's a thirty foot drop if you jump from here,” Rorzan corrected, folding his arms. “It's only about a ten foot drop if you climb down the banner.”

  “That doesn't make me feel better!”

  Rorzan looked to the guards in the foyer, who were starting to get back up. “Tick tock.”

  Vann cast a glance at the guards, then hurried to the edge of the hole he'd made in the wall. The city of Papreon loomed before him outside the palace grounds. There was already a commotion outside, people gathering around the gates to see what was going on and why a huge section of the palace facade had been blown into the gardens outside.

  The banner that Rorzan had pointed out flapped in the wind, a bit of it curling into the hole in the wall so Vann didn't have to make a jumping grab for it. He grabbed hold, swallowed, then stepped out into open air, hanging onto the banner with all his strength. It held, though Vann could have sworn he heard something stretch and tear slightly.

  It spurred him onward as he shimmied down the banner, Rorzan hovering at his side as he did. The ghost whistled. “Place has really gotten bigger since I last saw it.”