Echo City

by Tim Lebbon

  Mother, he thought, have you doomed me again? The old anger bit in—rage at what she had done to him—as well as a desperate fear that he had willingly invited another Baker-inspired tragedy into his life. He slowed his breathing and calmed his mind, knowing that panic could never help. She was dead. Anything that happened now was up to him.

  The thing in the basement had called him ghost. He had to show it that ghosts could bite.

  Nophel moved quickly. As he stepped down into the basement room again, the Dragarian turned its attention upon him, confirming that he could still be seen.

  “Has your friend left—” it began, but Nophel gave it no chance to continue. He stepped on one stretched chain, forcing the creature low to the ground and crushing its injured chest against the stone. As it screamed in surprised agony, he straddled it, pulled his knife, and sat heavily on its back. He felt the wings against his thighs, warm thin things with blood pumping visibly through thick veins.

  He grabbed the Dragarian’s hair—it was greasy and slick, and he had to twist it around his hand to maintain a grip—and pulled its head back. He nestled the knife against its exposed throat. Its cries and struggles ceased. The basement became very quiet but for the rhythm of blood pounding through Nophel’s ears.

  “You will find,” he said, “that this ghost is not as ineffectual as you might believe.”

  “You’re just like them,” the thing said. “You’ll fade to nothing soon enough.”

  “They might fade, but they still shot you down.”

  “Unfair advantage.”

  It speaks as though it knows of the Blue Water, he thought. Perhaps it was bluffing, hinting at knowledge it could not own. He would have to be cautious if he was to expose the information he sought.

  “It’s been a long time since you opened your doors to the rest of Echo City,” Nophel said.

  “You’d be surprised.” It spoke carefully, cautious not to increase the pressure of the blade against its throat. Nophel pulled a little harder, feeling the warm drip of blood on his fisted hand. The Dragarian caught its breath.

  “What have you come for?”

  “What have you?” the thing replied, and for a moment Nophel wanted to slit its throat. If it thought it could play with him, enter into word games while he was the one with the knife—

  But, game or not, its question rooted in Nophel’s mind. What had he come for? To question this thing and serve the Marcellans? Or to seek out something for himself?

  “I’ve done this before,” Nophel said, pulling the knife harder. He felt a slight give as it split the thing’s skin, and he swallowed the sick feeling rising in him. He could not betray his lie for a moment, or else the Dragarian would never give him anything. It had to believe completely that he was ready to torture and kill it, and once that belief was implanted, he might have a short while to dig for real answers. “I usually start with the eyes, but with you, strange thing that you are, I think the wings will have to go first. You’ll fight. I’m sure of that. You’re a soldier, after all. But these chains will contain your fight. And I have all day.”

  There were no snappy answers, no clever retorts, and when he leaned slightly to the side he saw the Dragarian’s strange eyes blinking softly as it considered its predicament.

  “I was sent out to search for someone,” it said.

  “Who?”

  “Someone … who will save us.”

  “Save you from what?”

  “Doom,” the Dragarian said. Nophel felt its fear, the shiver of terror that could not be affected. “The doom of Echo City, rising even now.”

  “Rising?”

  It started to breathe more heavily, shaking. “Please don’t make me—”

  “What is rising? What doom?”

  “The doom that has brought Dragar back to lead us—”

  “Lead you into Honored Darkness. I know all your Dragarian swineshit. But I’m not here to listen to your religious crap, and I know you’re not here to spout it.”

  “No,” the thing said. “No.”

  “So what are you looking for?” It did not answer. “What? What?” He jerked back, tugging at the thing’s hair even as he pulled on the knife, the sudden movement and violence startling one word from the terrified creature’s mouth.

  “Baker!”

  “Baker?” Nophel whispered. My mother is dead, he thought, and he felt the Blue Water slithering across his tongue once again, smelled it sharp in his nose.

  “Our spies tell us that he’s back. He will go to her. And he was always ours.”

  If he had not been distracted, Nophel might have sensed what was coming next. He would have felt the thing’s shaking lessen, heard its breathing slow, sensed the rumblings deep inside as it entered into some sort of internal prayer. And he might have taken the knife from its throat. But his mind was on his dead mother, that Baker bitch, and why the hell had this monstrosity come out of Dragar’s Canton looking for—

  It flicked its head from left to right and back again, pulling forward at the same time. Its slick hair, grasped in Nophel’s fist, tightened around his fingers, and he felt the gush of warmth across his other hand as its throat opened.

  The Dragarian cried out in pain, slumping as Nophel fell from its back. He released its head and the knife at the same time, and both thumped to the stony floor. It landed facing him, those stunning indigo eyes fading already as a puddle of blood spread quickly beneath it. The blood was black in the lamplight. Its eyes reflected little. Even as Nophel reined in his shock and crawled to the Dragarian, determined to ask more, why, who, he realized that it was beyond answering anything.

  He knelt beside the dying thing and tried to deny the last word it had spoken. But it was beyond denial.

  Baker.

  Nophel spent a while in the enclosed courtyard. Oxomanlia clung to the sides of the buildings, and usually its sweet perfume would permeate the air at this time of day. But not today. He’d slammed the door behind him, cutting off the dead thing down in that basement, and he held his breath, paused in the moment between past and future.

  Baker … Baker …

  He had helped them destroy her. Brought them evidence, gathering it through the Scopes, aiding them in building a case, until in the end the Marcellans had decided that it was not in Echo City’s interest for her to answer any case. They had wanted her work halted and her voice silenced, and over one terrible night they had done just that. He’d stood beside the Scopes that his mother had chopped to serve the Marcellans and watched as they destroyed everything she had ever done. In that fire, so Dane had assured him, her remains were turned to ash. They had not even wanted her body crucified on the walls as a warning to others, because there were no others like the Baker. Not anymore. Their actions—and his efforts, investigations, and betrayal—had ended the long line of Bakers once and for all and closed a page on Echo City’s history. It had been the greatest day of his life.

  And now this flying thing from out of Dragar’s Canton had come looking for the Baker. He will go to her.… And he was always ours. Did they really believe that their old prophesy was coming true?

  Nophel touched the deformed ruin of his face. None of the Unseen seemed to see this, he thought, but he knew that was not true. It was simply that the physical meant so much less to them than it did to normal people. A bird called somewhere, startling him and moving the moment on. Behind him was the closed doorway, ahead the narrow alley that led back to the main street. Once on that street, he would have no choice but to return to Dane Marcellan, taking what little information he had. He did not belong out here. He had never killed except at a distance, and the real blood on his hands made him feel sick.

  So he walked through the stinking alleyway, soon finding himself standing at the opening where it vented its stench onto the street. He watched the people passing by, and they did not see him. I just killed a man, he thought, though the Dragarian was like no man he had ever seen. It intrigued him that only in death did he think o
f the flying thing as a he rather than an it.

  “New?” a voice asked. Alexia closed her hand around his wrist.

  “You’ve already asked me that.”

  “Oh. Come and see.” She led the way, and even though she had let go of his arm, Nophel found himself following. She weaved through the oblivious crowd, and, unlike before, he found it easier to follow. He still brushed past a fat man and a little girl, but they barely noticed, wiping away a floating spiderweb or the breath of an errant breeze. And as they walked, things began to change.

  At first it was Alexia who was different. He saw her fading again, becoming less substantial and showing refracted, distorted parts of the world through her body. Then he felt a shifting of perceptions, something drawn out of him and hauled in by Alexia’s closeness and his compulsion to follow, and her body manifested again. This time, it was the world around them that grew vague.

  “No,” he said, but he kept walking. “Leave me, I have to go.” But Alexia turned and smiled at him, mouthing something that seemed to drift in from a great distance: I’m only showing you.

  The people around them faded away. Life left the street, color was leached from the buildings and plants as if exposed to a decade’s sun in moments, and soon Nophel and Alexia were standing in an Echo City that held no life at all, not even their own. This was a place frozen between times, its plants motionless and lifeless, the sky above wan and empty, and even though the sun hung overhead, it was a pale echo of its true self, unmoving and cold.

  “What is this?” Nophel asked, surprised that his voice sounded so normal. He stepped across the street and touched a building. Stone, cool and gritty, just as it should feel.

  “The final existence of the Unseen,” she said. “This is what awaits us all. I come and go, but every day brings me closer to being here forever.”

  “No,” he said. “It won’t be like this for me. My mother would have never meant it to be—”

  “Your mother was an experimenter in arcane things!” Alexia spat, and such passion seemed incongruous in this neutral place. “For every thing she got right, there were five that were wrong.”

  “How do you—”

  “The Marcellans gave us her Blue Water—me and many others. They wanted us to be their secret fighting force.” The anger left her as quickly as it came. “This is what we became.”

  “Not me,” Nophel said. “Not me.”

  “Because you’re her son?”

  He turned and started walking away from Alexia. Change back, he thought. Take me back, I can’t be like this … His walk turned into a run, and when he glanced back, Alexia had vanished. His was a lonely, endless gray street in a gray city, and for a moment, until he rounded a corner and saw the blur of movement returning, he thought he might be there forever.

  He cried out in joy as the world came to life around him, fading in from some distance until the people were close enough to touch. He did so, startling one woman into a scream, rushing farther until the colors were all there again, the smells and sounds and sights of the city he both loved and hated. As he ran as fast as he could toward Hanharan Heights, all that was left to return was him.

  Gorham sent Devin and Bethy back to Course. Peer saw him whispering to them before they left. Maybe they’d simply come this far as a guard, but she thought not. Gorham was planning things moment by moment, and now he had something else for them to do.

  “Where are they going?” she asked.

  “Spreading the word. Come on.” He led the way down into the shadows. Malia descended through the hatch next, and Rufus and Peer followed. It was a strange feeling, leaving the cool open air and feeling the pressures of the land crushing in, and the darkness was complete. Say goodbye to the stars, Gorham had said, and Peer found herself glancing up at them moments before Malia closed the hatch. She had never appreciated the beauty of the sky more than at that moment.

  Gorham moved confidently, handing them each a torch from clips on the walls and guiding them along a short corridor to a metal door. He twisted some bolts and the door hissed open, a rush of air pulling past them as pressures equalized. So they can smell what’s coming in, Peer thought, and the idea was deeply disturbing. Gorham had warned them about the things they would see down here, the chopped that the Baker used to guard her laboratories, and she was terrified.

  He barely paused when they were through the door, even though the space around them opened out so that the walls were way beyond the reach of their torches. Peer had the impression of wide open spaces, and the occasional gnarled columns that the torches danced across did little to alleviate that. Rufus glanced back at her, and the light reflected in his wide eyes. Green eyes, greener than I’ve ever seen. The more time she spent with him, the more she was beginning to believe there was more to him than met the eye. Breaking out of Skulk, he had been so willing to kill, and now he carried his bag of strange things once more. Gorham had even returned the weapon with which Rufus had killed Gerrett. We all have to trust one another now, he’d said, as if trust could get them far.

  Well, perhaps it could. She wondered whether Gorham trusted her or, when he looked at her, did he see only hatred and the potential for revenge? And with what had happened, could she even trust herself?

  After a while Gorham came to a halt, hand raised. “Here they come,” he said. “Stay calm and—”

  Something knocked him to the ground and flitted away into the darkness. Peer heard the gentle flap of huge wings and saw something unknowable flash through the puddle of their torchlight.

  “It’s Gorham!” he shouted, scrambling to his feet again and raising his torch. “It’s Gorham and Malia, and we bring two friends!”

  “Friends to the Baker?” a voice said from the darkness, and Peer winced when she sensed something closing on them again. She pushed Rufus to the ground and fell over him, and moments later something rushed by overhead. Things lashed across the back of her neck and head, and she cried out.

  “Yes!” Gorham said. “And someone she’ll want to see.” He was standing again, crouched low and aiming his torch about them. He glanced at Malia, Rufus, and Peer, trying a smile to indicate his control of the situation.

  It did not work. Something drifted in from the shadows and plucked the torch from his hand. It doused the flame and shoved him to the ground. Then it sat astride Gorham’s chest and whispered, “Wait!” At last, Peer could see the thing.

  It had been a woman, but now it flew. The wings were thin and membranous, and many long tendrils drooped from her legs and lower body. A queasiness rose in Peer. This thing was unnatural, a bastardization of what should be, and however clever it might be, she found it disturbing. The Baker made the natural order of things her own personal playground. Yet through the fear and disgust came another thought, and Peer could not help smiling. Penler would love this.

  “Tell Nadielle I’ve—”

  “Wait,” the flying thing whispered again. It looked at all of them, eyes resting the longest on Rufus. It hissed softly.

  “But—”

  “Wait.”

  “Best wait, I think, Gorham,” Malia said. And they did, but the wait did not last for long. At a signal none of them heard, the thing lifted from Gorham’s chest, disappearing into the darkness before Peer could blink.

  “There’s something else here,” Peer said in a low voice. Never before had she sensed being watched as strongly as this. Watched, observed, analyzed—she felt eyes all over her, and whichever way she turned, the sensation grew.

  “The Pserans,” Malia said. “They’ll guide us in now.”

  “Or kill us,” Gorham said. He stood, brushing himself down.

  “I don’t see anything,” Peer said.

  “That’s how I know they’re there.” Malia was turning a slow circle, and then she paused, pointing into the murk.

  “There.”

  A pale shape emerged from the darkness—a naked woman with a wickedly sharp appendage protruding from her chest. Down each side,
spines flexed and stretched.

  “The Baker isn’t expecting you,” the Pseran said. Two more appeared, materializing as if from nowhere. Rufus did not reach for his weapon. Peer wondered why.

  “We’ve some important news for Nadielle,” Gorham said. “And someone she needs to see.”

  The first Pseran moved quickly, seeming to flow rather than walk as it approached Peer and Rufus. It brushed past Peer as though she was not there at all and halted within kissing distance of Rufus, eyeing him and sniffing with a delicate nose.

  “Ahh,” she whispered, nodding and stroking one long finger down Rufus’s cheek. “Chopped.”

  “What?” Peer asked. “What did you say?” But the Pseran continued to ignore her. Instead, it moved past the group and ahead, indicating with one backward glance that they should follow.

  “Come on,” Gorham said. He sounded flustered for the first time, and Peer wondered how close they had all come to being killed.

  “Chopped?” she asked Rufus. “You? Chopped?” Rufus only frowned, bemused.

  Gorham was looking back at them as he walked. Peer caught his eye. He shrugged, looked at Rufus, and faced front again.

  Chopped? she thought. Confused, scared, she followed, because that was the only way to go.

  The Pseran guided them through this Echo of Crescent Canton, over an unstable bridge spanning a dried riverbed, and past a ruined village, where Peer caught sight of strange lights from the corner of her eye. All the while, the Pseran’s two sisters—Gorham whispered of them, dropping back slightly so that the four visitors could walk and talk together—followed behind. They kept to the deep shadows, and Peer caught sight of neither, but she always knew that they were there. They watched her. But, more than that, they watched Rufus. She saw the tall man glancing about him many times, and he never once met her eyes.

  They followed an old rutted track, and here the ceiling was low enough to be partially illuminated by their oil torches. Peer had been down in the Echoes before, though only a few times and always in built-up areas. Here, she could not help but be amazed at what she saw. Perhaps only two hundred steps above them were the crops that would help feed the uncountable inhabitants of Echo City, while down here the dead past was home to phantoms and dust. Some roots showed through and hung like dirt-caked spiderwebs—the deepest roots of the tallest trees. At irregular spacings were the unimaginable supports and struts laid ages ago, upon which the current Crescent Canton had grown and become the fertile area it was today. Here and there were hollows in the underside, and once Peer saw the red twinkle of blinking eyes staring back at her.