The Final Battle

by Jason

This is part of the final battle sequence (!) These Peck scenes will be intercut with scenes where Emyr confronts Gloam and The Herald, Jynn and The Fang fight S’Uba.

Peck stepped over the threshold and realised that Emyr had vanished. This was not the plan. There was a moment of panic and then the nexus caught hold of Peck and carried her out and away from The Circle. The universe opened up a new conduit, just for her and catapulted her across the stars. Shifting chromatic patterns propelled her down a long narrow tunnel. The universe opened itself and expanded in every direction, revealing layers of sound and energy she had not sensed before. The tunnel she travelled down pierced the fabric of the universe, crossing into another realm where it passed through layer after layer of primal song till the stars blinked out and Peck flew on through an electric darkness. There were no reference points for her to cling to. If it had not been for the nexus force that still gripped her body Peck would have though she had stopped moving all together.

Fear rose up through Peck’s spine.

“Panic is the parent of mistakes!” she smiled as the words of her old history teacher came back to her. Peck focussed on her breathing, reduced her world to the inhale and the exhale. She opened her eyes again and found herself still in darkness but her prison was no longer silent; distant whispers rose out of the dark to meet her. Snatches of melody, chords and alien tempos. Layer upon layer of sound. An insistent susurration, repeating, washing over itself, slowly growing louder and strangely solid, as if the sound itself had taken on form. The darkness began to lift by degrees, Peck was able to make out the features of this new realm. A blackened and bulbous sun hung like a spinning toy in a cloudless grey and silver threaded sky. Light ran along the silver threads in dazzling patterns like lightning coursing along the limbs of a metal tree. Something rolled and twisted beneath her feet. She could feel herself dropping down towards the curling shapes and they revealed themselves to be great waves, rolling across a vast pewter coloured ocean. The crashing of the waves dominated the realm and filled her ears. The force of the nexus gave her up and strong winds lifted her exhausted body, propelling Peck closer and closer toward towering granite grey cliffs and at the last moment lifted her up and deposited her on the ragged clifftop.

She touched the ground with her bare fingers and felt reality resolve itself. The rock was hard and cool. The wind tugged at her clothes and hair. Peck could feel the rumbling waves hitting the base of the cliff. The strange sun was cold and dominated the haunted sky. There was a strange charge in the air and almost electric frisson. Peck across the stony ground and out across the never-ending sea. When she had landed on the clifftop it had seemed empty. Now as she looked around her, she saw them, shadows bleeding out of the grey, smoky forms leaching into this realm from somewhere else and slowly coalescing in front of her. She was surrounded by a collection of dark figures standing amongst the rocks: The Many waiting to greet her, waiting to ask her one final question.

***

“Why am I here?” Peck looked around her.

A ripple passed through The Many as if they were asking themselves a question. The shadowy figures started to move in wide sweeping circles. Moving across the stony ground then out into the open air, high above the waves, and back across the stone. All of them in orbit around Peck, like electrons sweeping past their nucleus, as if they were drawn to her. When they eventually spoke to Peck The Many’s voice came from individuals in the pack, from the stone, the sky and the spaces in between. It was one voice and many and none.

“We need you.”

“Your gift.”

“What do you mean?” asked Peck.

“You are strong.”

“You can help us.”

“Must help us.”

“How can I help you?”

The Many stopped revolving for a moment and each took a step closer, “Because you hurt us.” Then the carousel started up again, faster this time, with an urgent agency.

“You were going to hurt people. I had no choice,” Peck turned on the spot, trying to focus on just one of the of the ghostly figures.

“We know.”

“It hurt.”

“Yes, it did, but…”

“…It hurt all of us.”

“Yes.”

“That is why we need her.”
            “Why we brought her here.”

“To hurt us again?”

“No.”

“To get to our pain.”

“And exorcise it.”

“Restore our songs.”

“Give us back to ourselves.”

***

Peck had heard tales of their songs. Back in the School her history teachers had waxed lyrical about the beauty, intricacy and strength in The Many’s songs. Many voices, one song. A shared melody, a chorus woven into creation. It joined atoms together and had given energy and life to the elements that the Five Mothers had left them. Many voices singing one song with strength and artistry. Their songs had been woven into the universe, they had sung worlds into existence, galaxies and nebulae had danced to their melodies. Their songs had been exquisite.

The Many continued to circle her. Their orbit became increasingly erratic, they juddered and glitched as they moved. As they moved around the young Collectoris The Many started to merge, one shadow figure awkwardly sliding into the next till one figure stood above Peck.

“How can I help you?”

The Many looked down at Peck, “Reach inside.”

“Inside?”

“Yes, as you did in the city, on the road.”

“Is it safe?”

“For you?”

“No,” Peck stepped toward The Many. “For you. This is S’Uba’s song we’re talking about. She is very strong.”

“That is why we brought you here. It is far away from the Circle, from her.”

“I see,” the waves crashed against the base of the cliff, the wind whistled around them. “Where are we?”

“This is akin to the world where our song originated, the universe beneath your own.”

“Are we inside an atom?” Peck looked at the bulbous sun, the silver-streaked skies. “Nucleus and electrons?”

“Yes,” The Many knelt before Peck. “Will you root out her song? Will you release us?”

Peck looked up into the smooth featureless space where The Many’s face would have been and she realised she had to help, “I will do my best.” Peck placed her palms on the cool stone, spread out her fingers and closed her eyes.

***

            Each stone has a particular song. Many would assume it would be hard and solid variations on a marching rhythm perhaps with a shiny and percussive edge. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The song of a particular stone depends on its formation. Stone laid down over the course of millennia has an interlaced pattern, overlapping harmonies and compact cadences that grew in complexity as each layer was formed and shaped.  Igneous formations are filled with a passionate music, rooted in fire and liquid motion that rolls and reverberates through strata with a delicious exuberance.   

Peck’s fingers connected with the stone on the clifftop and found something very different. The songs in this element were simple almost naive. Yet, as Peck grew accustomed to this new voice, she sensed the depth and nuance at the song’s heart. This new song was vast, it would fill cathedrals if you let it. It was ancient, like a chant or a ritual song, it had a purity to it that was distracting.

Peck allowed her song to pour down through her fingers into the new stone. She felt a tiny shock, a charged ripple as her song reached the druidic sounds. There was a moment of hesitation as the two met and then the chant opened itself to Peck and took her by the hand. She knew she was kneeling on the clifftop but a part of her was walking in time to the chanting. As she walked the chanting took on a physical form, a line of hooded figures moving steadily in unison. She walked with them through vast caverns, intricately carved pillars rose to meet a distant domed ceiling. Light fell in waves of delicate colour that danced to the rhythmic music. Peck followed her guides across a dozen of these cavernous spaces and with each step their chant grew stronger till they reached a central point in the stone. In all directions Peck could see cathedral space after cathedral space stretch out form this point, like a mirrors repeating infinite reflections.

In the centre of this space Peck could see a doorway of sorts. It looked alive, moving of its own accord, changing shape like something melting, dripping and reforming. The line of druids seemed hesitant but followed Peck as she walked closer. The doorway was not melting like wax but constructed from a dense ashy smoke. It billowed and writhed like a living thing.

The druids stayed with her but their song lost some of its volume as they approached the smoky doorway. Peck could sense fear creeping into the voices. She stopped and carefully unravelled her song from the chant, she stood beside the druids and bowed in thanks and asked if they would wait for her should she have to return along the same route. The line of figures turned and started to walk away. After a few steps they turned as one and stopped, the formed an arc in front of the smoke portal. As one they bowed.

Peck smiled and turned and faced the billowy doorway. There was something unholy about this portal, it swirled and hissed with a familiar disdain but she knew that The Many’s songs were hidden on the other side of that ash thick cloud. With a final glance back toward the line of druids Peck entered the portal. She held a hand above her eyes to try and shield them from the ash and smoke. The hissing grew louder, turning into a cold laugh. In the middle of the cloud Peck saw a golden light. It was tall and lithe and turned in time to the movement of the surrounding cloud.

“Hello little Peck,” the voice came from within the light, cold and imperious.

“How are you here?”

“I can be wherever I please, wherever I am needed,” the air around the voice started to solidify, there were limbs and a torso emerging from the golden light. “It is a skill I have developed over the centuries.” S’Uba’s face emerged from the glow.

“But S’Uba is, you are in the Circle, with the others.”

“Indeed. She is there and I am here. I am an echo, a part of her.”

“You’re a copy?”

“No, not exactly. I am a part of her song, a few verses and a chorus that I once sang into existence for one purpose. To stand here,” S’Uba’s echo gestured at the smoke around her. “To guard what resides in the smoke.”

“The Many.”

“Their memories, their histories, their songs.”

“So that you can enslave them?”

“To keep the useful, pliable. They are vital to our success.”

“You are torturing them.”

“I know,” S’Uba’s echo smiled. “It is a necessity.”

“It is cruel.”

“Yes, it is, but still it is a necessity,” the glowing echo stopped moving and looked down at Peck. “We can see the end little Peck. It is close now. So close we can hear the silence that follows the song, feel it in our bones. The end of everything Peck and it will mean release. It will mean freedom for all of us. This will happen. I have seen it. So, you see little one, I will not fail in my duty.”

***

SCENE – Peck defeats the Echo…