by Tim Lebbon
“What does the fat old bastard want?” she asked.
“He said you could lead me on toward the Baker.”
The woman smiled. “I can send you on your way, but I can’t lead you. I’m too busy here. I need the money for …” She laid a hand on her stomach and looked away, but not before Nophel saw her skin fade to a painful gray. She looked sicker than sick.
“I have money,” Nophel said.
“Good. Then pay me for your hour and I’ll tell you the way to Ferner’s Temple.”
Nophel went to object—Dane had said these people would lead him, not send him—but the woman’s pain was almost a heat in the room, the atmosphere redolent of wretchedness.
“I’ll pay you for two hours,” he said. Fat Andrea did not protest, and a few beats later he went back out through the gloomy corridors, past the ex-Blade, who sent him on his way with a few mocking remarks. At the end, Andrea had looked at him with those hooded, enticing eyes again, and perhaps she’d seen past his deformed face to the man inside. Or maybe his generosity had made that possible. But he’d felt no pangs of desire, and he had no wish to take anything from Andrea other than a way through the streets.
He followed that way, and by the time the street cafés were filling for lunch, he found himself at Ferner’s Temple. He’d not expected to find a real temple. But the last thing he’d anticipated was a tavern.
Through the early part of that afternoon, Nophel was passed along a route of contacts and places that, if what Dane said was right, would lead eventually to his sister, the new Baker. Dane’s message tube sat heavy in his pocket, and though he still felt moments of temptation, Nophel did not open it. There was a sense of loyalty to Dane and also the continuing belief—more proven with every contact he made and yet more confused as well—that Dane was more allied with the Watchers than with the Hanharan religion that had controlled the city for so long.
But there was also the alleged sister whom Nophel had never known about. He had spent a lot of time studying the Baker’s long ancestry over the years, and everything he read made him more satisfied that his treachery had been a good thing. Always feared, rarely fêted, the Bakers were an oddity in Echo City’s history that had persisted despite the many factors standing against them: lack of fealty to any government, practitioners of arcane arts, blasphemers, loners, and wielders of powers that would intimidate the powerful. As with any family, their history was checkered, with criminals, philanthropists, and monsters all holding the name of Baker for a time. Across the space of twelve thousand years over which he had managed to trace their ancestry—and though there were large periods in that extensive span when their line had become untraceable—they went from publicly visible to rumored as dead. People loved some and hated others but were always fascinated.
And there was always someone calling for their eradication.
The more he researched, the more amazed he became that no one had killed off the Bakers’ line long ago. Perhaps they’re too hard to kill, he thought. I believed it had happened in my lifetime, but now …
One other factor—the decider for Nophel, the silver seal upon the casket of his betrayal—was that there were very, very few instances of a Baker’s giving birth naturally. He was one such example, and she had thrown him away.
She’s no sister of mine, he thought. Whoever this new Baker might be, however possessed of her mother’s talent and knowledge handed down from the past, he had no doubt that she came from somewhere vastly different than he did. He was a Baker’s child, and she little more than another chopped monster.
But that did not mean he had no wish to meet her. On the contrary, he was eager. Perhaps in her he would find an answer to the question that plagued him always: Why did she cast me aside?
He drove down self-pity. His bitterness toward his mother was rich, and though he had learned that it was not necessarily his betrayal that led to her death—the Dragarians had killed her, or so Dane claimed—the responsibility still sat well with him.
He wondered what this new Baker looked like, how she spoke, what her young life had been. Dane had told him little, feigning ignorance, but Nophel sensed in the Marcellan a wealth of knowledge that he was simply unwilling to share. Such was the prerogative of a Marcellan. Most of all, he wondered whether this sister knew of his existence. If she had known about him all this time, then she must have chosen to not trace him or contact him. He did not care. That only made things easier.
The day was hot, his mind was abuzz, the past was becoming a shady, misunderstood place. And with every step Nophel took, the future came closer, more exciting than he had ever hoped and perhaps offering the chance for some sort of revenge.
Ferner, landlord of Ferner’s Temple, was a thin man with an abnormally large head, and he carried the veined tracework of a drunk across his cheeks and nose. He seemed not to notice Nophel’s disfigurement, and he sent him to a chocolate shop close to Course’s western extreme. It took Nophel a while to walk there, and, in the end, tiredness overcame him and he bought a carriage ride. The two small horses walked slowly, breaking wind and generally ignoring orders shouted at them by the driver, until finally the western wall of the city came into view. Nophel muttered his thanks and disembarked, walking ahead of the horses toward the wall.
The chocolate-maker was an incredibly thin woman with a huge nose and a chopped third limb protruding from her hip. Her right hand gathered samples to sniff and taste, while her two left hands measured, stirred, and poured into a vat of new chocolate. She said nothing when Nophel entered her shop, simply staring at his disfigured face and continuing to work. When he told her that Ferner had sent him, then repeated the code words Ferner had whispered into his ear, the woman halted in her stirring for a beat. Then she carried on, using her third limb to stir while her two natural hands carved something onto the back of a slab of dark chocolate. She wrapped it, handed it to Nophel, and, when he offered some money, shook her head and waved him away.
He left her shop and read what she had carved.
By late afternoon he had visited three more places, imparting code phrases to six people, and he was convinced that he was being followed.
It was surprising how quickly he became used to being seen again. People stared at him and steered their children out of his path, and some of them offered uncertain smiles of sympathy. Those he respected most were the ones who either ignored him or treated him as they would anyone else—trying to con him out of money, overcharging him for food or services, or shoving past him in the street with little more than a mumbled apology. They made him feel human, while the frightened ones and the smilers turned him into a monster.
The last person he was directed to was an old man sitting on a bench by the main canal leading from the refineries to the Western Reservoir. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and heavy coat, even in the heat. Beside him on the bench were a fishing rod broken into three pieces, fishing paraphernalia, and a wooden bucket filled with water, in which a single fish swam in tight, slow circles. The woman who’d sent Nophel here had told him that Brunley Bronk sat on the same bench every day between the hours of noon and sunset, and most other times few people were able to find him. She said it was an old man’s habit, but to Nophel it sounded like someone making himself available.
Nophel had doubled back several times on his walk along the canal, leaving the overgrown towpath and slinking between buildings, trying to make out who was following him. There was never any sign, but that only served to unsettle him even more. He felt eyes on the back of his neck. And since his experience with the Blue Water, he knew that not seeing someone did not mean no one was there.
So if the Unseen followed him, what of it? He did not know the rules and capabilities of his mother’s potions, whether he would still be able to see the Unseen after taking the White Water. But he was also sure that such people would know of the Baker’s continued existence, because they could sit in any shadow in the city and see, hear, and smell every secret.
Besides, caution was good, but paranoia would not serve him well.
He sat beside the man and looked down at the fish.
“You’re from Dane Marcellan,” the old man said.
“How did you know that?”
“Tell me.”
Nophel muttered the code that the woman who’d sent him this way had written down for him. The old man nodded and scratched at his ear.
“Eat the paper,” he said. “Don’t want you dropping it so that just anyone can use those words. They have power. See this?” He held out his hand.
“What am I looking at?” Nophel asked.
“My reaction. Those words. They stop the shakes, because they make me excited. Something’s happening. And you’ve come to ask me how to find the Baker.”
He knows! Nophel thought. I’m close now, so close! The weight of Dane’s message tube made itself obvious in his jacket pocket, as if aware that the end of its journey was near. He glanced back along the canal path, but the only movement was the splash of ducks and the scamperings of canal rats. They were twice the size of normal city rats, fattened on birds and frogs and water mice.
“What you looking for?” the old man said.
“Nothing.”
“You thought you were being followed. You should have said.” The man had turned to him now, and any lightness was gone from his voice. Nophel saw the seriousness in this man’s eyes, and the startling intelligence, and he berated himself for forming foolish opinions. I thought he was feeble.
“So what do you want with the Baker?”
“It’s not me, it’s Dane Marcellan.” I hope he can’t hear my lie, he thought.
“Why?”
Nophel snorted. “I can’t tell you anything like that! You expect me to—”
The cool touch of keen metal pressed against his throat. A hand curved around him from behind and clamped across his forehead. And, in the center of his back, he felt the bulky heat of a knee.
“One wrong move,” a woman’s voice said.
“So who the crap is he, Malia?” a man’s voice whispered.
Nophel felt the woman lean in close and sniff at him. There was something animalistic about it, something brutal, and her voice purred like a serrated knife through flesh.
“Marcellan pet.”
They took them farther along the canal to Malia’s boat. It wasn’t the safest place, but it was the closest. Malia and Devin guided Nophel, an arm each and a knife pressed into each side. They let Peer bring the old man Brunley. Brunley complained that he’d have to leave his fishing gear behind, but Peer assured him that they wouldn’t be long. She could not inject any certainty into her voice. For all she knew, Malia was going to kill them both.
Inside the moored canal barge, Malia quickly drew curtains across the windows, while Devin tied Nophel into a chair. Brunley sat on a comfortable bench behind a small table, crossing his hands before him and watching the proceedings with a sharp eye.
“What are you mixed up with now, Brunley?” Malia asked.
“Fishing,” he said.
Peer glanced from one to the other, and she could sense the long relationship between these two. Malia spoke to the old man without looking at him, bustling at a cupboard, and he answered in a lazy voice. They’ve been here before, Peer thought. The questions, the deceits.
“Fishing with the Marcellans’ Scope keeper?”
“Is that who he is? I’ve never seen him before.”
“Tell him,” Malia said, standing before Nophel. Devin had tied his bonds good and tight and retreated outside, sitting on the barge’s roof to keep watch.
“I’m thirsty,” Nophel said.
“I’ll throw you in the canal later.” Malia turned back to the cupboard, and an uncomfortable silence descended.
This isn’t finding Rufus, Peer thought. They’d been sitting in the tavern, dividing Course and Crescent into search districts on a large sheaf of paper, when the whore Andrea had arrived. She’d been running, she stank, and she’d grasped Malia’s arm and dragged her into the toilets before any of them knew what was happening. Peer had not seen Malia controlled like this by anyone before. As she’d looked around at the others, eyebrows raised awaiting an explanation, Malia had come storming from the toilets, violence in her stride.
From there, to the canal, to here, and still Peer was as confused as she’d been at the beginning.
“What’s the Marcellans’ Scope keeper doing here?” Peer asked. Nophel looked at her—one good eye, and a face ravaged by growths. He stared, perhaps expecting her to look away, but she’d seen a lot worse in Skulk.
“Looking for the Baker,” Malia said. And that was when Peer knew Malia meant to kill the Scope keeper. Talking about the Baker so freely before him—even mentioning her in his presence—meant that he would not leave.
“Who are you?” Nophel asked.
“I’m the one with questions.” Malia turned from the cupboard at last, a bottle of cheap wine in one hand, a small velvet bag in the other. The bag moved. Truthbugs. Peer shivered at the memory.
“Do you know where she is?” Nophel asked. “I have to see her.”
“So you can kill her?” Malia said.
“Why would I want to kill her?” Nophel’s eye was wide, but his expression was hard to read; his was not a normal face.
“Because you work for the Marcellans.” Malia squatted before him and placed the bag flat on her palm.
“Who are you?” Nophel asked.
“That’s none of your—”
“They’re Watchers,” Brunley said, and Malia glanced at him, annoyed.
“So am I!” Nophel said. “A true Watcher, watching from the highest roof.”
Malia placed the bag gently on the floor before her, drew her short sword, and pointed its tip at Nophel’s good eye. He strained back in the chair, holding his breath, tensing, and several large boils across his jawline burst. Malia leaned forward, following him. The sword was never more than a finger’s width from his eye.
“You’ve got only one good one,” she said. “Choose your lies carefully, you fucking Hanharan pet.”
Peer could feel the air in the small barge cabin thrumming with tension. Brunley was motionless, and Malia and the deformed man looked more like statues than like living people.
“I’m not lying,” Nophel said at last. “And the Marcellan I serve—”
“Even whisper that name in here, and I’ll cut its taste from your tongue!” Malia shouted. Peer stood, hesitant, but one quick glance from Malia told her to stay back.
There were times in Peer’s life when she became very aware of the potential routes the future might take. One of them had been when she was fifteen years old, and three men in Mino Mont had approached her with a proposition: Work for us, and your family will never be poor again. Even that fifteen-year-old girl had been wise enough to see the gang markings on the men’s ears, and her refusal had been a brave moment—but for a beat, she’d felt her life being squeezed into places she had no wish to go. Another time had been when the Scarlet Blades came knocking at her door. There were four of them, two holding back in fighting positions, and for a time after opening her door to them, she’d wondered whether she was going to be raped and killed.
This was another such moment. So many things hung in the balance that she felt faint, as if a series of waves had suddenly set the barge dipping and rising. Rufus was lost; Gorham and Nadielle were somewhere unknown; there were rumors of Dragarians abroad. The city was whispering with fear, from couples huddled in café corners to crowds gathered on the street listening to doomsayers. The world was changing, and she was at its fulcrum.
“Stand back, Malia,” Peer said. “Killing’s no good here.”
“It was good enough for Bren,” Malia said, not taking her eyes from Nophel’s face.
“You think he hammered the nails into Bren’s wrists?”
The Watcher breathed heavily for a while, muscles visibly tensed as if she were about to push.
> Nophel could strain back no farther.
And then Malia eased, lowering the sword until its tip touched her trouser leg.
“What of the one you serve?” Peer asked.
Nophel closed his eye, trying to compose himself. She could actually see his shirt shift with the fluttering of his heart.
“He’s not a Hanharan devout,” Nophel said.
“I should believe you?”
“Yes.” Nophel’s hand massaged something in his lap.
“Peer, you’ve been out of this for too long,” Malia said. “He can only be a spy, and as for Brunley—”
“I’d do nothing to harm you, Malia,” the old man said, hurt in his voice. “We’re friends.”
Malia blinked at him but said nothing. Nophel squeezed the thing in his lap again. Peer caught Malia’s attention, then looked down at Nophel’s hands, and with a flash of movement Malia had the sword at the man’s throat again.
Now what is this? Peer thought, hating the fact that she might have been wrong. Perhaps this man was a spy after all. Maybe he was an assassin.
“Enjoying yourself?” Malia asked. She pulled his hands aside, keeping the sword pressed to his throat, and delved into his pocket. Pausing, she smiled. “Is this a message tube in your pocket or are you pleased to see me, ugly man?” She pulled out the tube and lowered her sword once again.
“That’s not for you,” Nophel said. “It’s private.”
“If it’s for the Baker, she’d want me to read it.”
Peer wasn’t sure if that was the case. The tension between Nadielle and Malia had been palpable, and if the Baker knew this Watcher was reading messages meant for her … But there was little Peer could do. This was Malia’s home, Malia’s situation, and the Baker was somewhere far away. And Peer was just as curious to know what was in the tube as she was.
“Nophel—” Brunley began, but Nophel shook his head.
“I’m the messenger, that’s all. I serve Dane Marcellan, not because of his name but because of his beliefs.”
