by Tim Lebbon
“And something more?” Nophel asked.
“I’ve always seen something in you I don’t like,” Dane said. “Bitterness. But whatever she did to you, she’s dead now.”
“It seems the Baker never dies,” Nophel said.
“The workhouse was her idea!” Dane spurted, and Nophel had never seen him so out of control. “She couldn’t keep you; you were a shock to her. And when you were born she tried to cure your affliction, but she failed. Weakened by childbirth, perhaps. You were too much responsibility for someone like her. And to begin with I agreed. If anyone were to discover I had a son …”
Son, he had said. Nophel’s breath caught. Son.
“I’ve always wanted to tell you but never knew how,” the Marcellan said.
“I’m your son,” Nophel said. “You and the Baker …”
“She wasn’t a good woman,” Dane said. “Such unnatural gifts, and they gave her a need for acceptance. Companionship. But never love.” Nophel had never seen Dane looking so sad.
“That’s why you took me from the workhouse.”
“When I could find reason, yes. We Marcellans needed someone to tend the Scopes, and I volunteered to find the perfect candidate.”
“You took me because you cared.”
“I took you because you’re my son,” Dane said, as open and honest as he had ever been.
“Did she know?”
Dane blinked a few times as if he’d never even considered that. “Maybe. But she didn’t …” He glanced away from Nophel, embarrassed.
“Care?”
Dane looked ahead at the shadows where his Blades had disappeared. “I have to go,” his father said, smoothing his uniform. Three Blades waited a dozen steps behind him, ready to protect him to their last breath.
“Why can’t you come back with us?” Nophel asked.
“No,” Dane said, shaking his head. “No. I can give you time. I can help you, because you have to leave. To survive. Don’t be too harsh on the Baker. She’s not like us.” Dane reached out and touched Nophel’s diseased face, so gently. And then he turned and started to run, and though Nophel called after him—once, loud, risking discovery in these darkening places—the Marcellan soon disappeared into the shadows.
Nophel turned and rushed after the Unseen, the place on his cheek where his father had touched burning, and as he tried to absorb the news, a flush of fury washed over him. His mother had abandoned him like a failed experiment, and eventually his father had rescued him and kept him in a tower, his shameful secret.
But the fury was a confused thing—hot and cold, rich and weak—and the tears, from both good eye and bad, took him by surprise.
Behind them, the sounds of death: screaming and hissing, shouts and screeches, the harsh impacts of violence, and the meaty thunks! of swords meeting flesh and bone. But Peer could not turn to see any of this, because Malia was dying.
The arrow had barely opened her skin, and the blood flow was slight. But it must have been dipped in poison, because the Watcher woman was thrashing on the ground, foaming at the mouth, and clasping Peer’s hand so tightly her that Peer could feel her bones grinding together.
“Hold on!” Peer pleaded, but Malia could not hear. She’d dropped her torch and it shone ahead of them, casting only a small portion of its light across Malia’s face. For that, Peer was glad. She had seen many people in pain before and had witnessed some dying in agony. But this seemed worse than any.
“K … k … k …” Malia choked, and one of her hands shifted quickly to the back of Peer’s head. She pulled, and much as Peer resisted, she was no match for Malia’s strength.
More screaming came from behind them as the Scarlet Blades fought with the Dragarians. The reasons and implications were far from her right now.
“Kill … me,” Malia groaned, the effort immense. She let go of Peer and started to shake again, limbs and head pummeling against the ground, and the foam around her mouth grew darker. She was keening now, an unconscious sound of utter distress, and Peer screamed to try to drown it out.
Her short sword was on the ground next to Malia. Its blade was keen, its point sharp. With all her weight on the handle, it would take less than a beat to pierce Malia’s heart and end her pain, but …
Peer grabbed the sword and stood, turning to view the violence behind her. She could make little sense of it—torchlight flickered here and there, illuminating a scene of confusion. Bodies darted and fell, the smells of blood and shit filled the air, and the screams were louder than any she could utter. Because I’m not dying, she thought, squeezing her eyes shut.
When she looked again, something was coming for her.
It flew, large diaphanous wings flapping rapidly in the confined space of this Echo, and it carried something in its hands—the curved shape recognizable as it drew closer.
Bow! she thought, leaping to the side, but Peer knew she could never dodge the arrow.
The flying thing squealed and fell, thrashing on the ground as it tried to dislodge a crossbow bolt from its underside. She never saw the man or woman who shot it.
“Peer!” Malia gurgled, hand closing around her ankle. She pulled, and Peer knelt at her side again. “S-send me … to … Bren.”
“I …” Peer said, but then Penler whispered in her mind, words he’d said to her soon after her arrival in Skulk. You’re far from a coward, he’d told her as she hugged a bottle of cheap wine, wallowing in self-pity.
She picked up her sword and rested it against Malia’s chest. The Watcher woman tensed, controlling her spasms. And though blood still bubbled from her mouth and her eyes rolled with agony, the corner of her mouth turned up in her familiar half-smile.
Peer reared up, crossed her hands on the sword’s hilt, and then dropped her weight on top of it.
Malia grunted once and then died.
Panic took Peer. She withdrew the sword, picked up the torch, and ran, fleeing the scenes and sounds of battle, the stench of death, the violence that seemed to stain the very air she breathed. And she craved the fresh air of reality, away from these past times that still echoed with chaos.
He had told her everything and named her Rose. It was his mother’s name. Then she had fallen asleep, leaning her head against his shoulder, twitching, and mumbling things he could not understand. While she slept he smelled her hair, and she did not smell like Nadielle. He touched the skin on her face, and she carried a different coolness. He stared into the softened gloom of the Baker’s rooms and wondered where Nadielle was, what she was doing, but any possibility that crossed his mind was a bad one.
The girl did not sleep for very long. When she stirred, Gorham was surprised to find that he had drifted off and her movements startled him awake. He’d believed that he was still awake, watching the walls of the Baker’s rooms as they expanded and contracted beneath the breath and beat of her far-reaching influence. But seeing the solid walls again, he realized the flexibility of his dreaming. She’ll never leave me alone, he thought as he surfaced, and the girl rolled from the bed and stretched.
There was a long, loaded moment when she looked slowly around the room. Gorham sat with breath held, watching the girl watching the room, and she had changed again. Grown older, he thought, though there was something not quite right about that. When her gaze swung back to him at last, he realized—her dreams had been her work, and waking had been the inspiration she needed.
“There’s lots to do,” she said. “Will you help?”
“Of course. I’m more than just a book.”
The girl smiled, then scratched at her arms. The dried stuff of her birth flaked off and drifted to the floor. “I need to wash first,” she said. “While I’m doing that, perhaps you can prepare some food?”
“Yes,” Gorham said, feeling no qualms whatsoever about taking orders from a child.
While Rose bathed, Gorham rooted through the Baker’s cold room to see what food was left. Whatever means she’d had of procuring fresh food must have gone with
her, because the remains of older foodstuffs were all he could find. The dried meats and cheeses were still edible, and the sliced mepple fruits, though softening, were far from rotten. He prepared a few plates and left them on the table, and when Rose emerged in some of Nadielle’s fresh clothes—the trouser legs and shirtsleeves rolled up to accommodate her smaller frame—they sat together to eat. The girl was distracted, staring intently at a plate of dried meat while her mind worked, and Gorham was careful not to interrupt. Finally, each of them nursing a glass of Echo City’s finest wine, she started to talk.
“She cannot stop the Vex,” she said. “She knows that.”
“You can …?” Gorham began, remembering the effect upon Nadielle when Neph had faced the Vex way, way beneath them.
“No,” she said, “but it’s obvious in her action. She chopped me as her successor, so she knew the end was close. She knew there were important things for you to tell me, which you have. And the Bakers don’t …”
“Not unless they know they’re about to die.”
“Bakers have rarely coexisted.” She stared into her glass. “She’ll give us as much time as she can, but there’s no telling how much that will be. We have to act quickly. But there are many assumptions. This Rufus has to be found.”
“He will be.”
“And brought here to me.”
“He will be.”
“You sound certain, but you can’t be. You can only assume.”
“Malia and Peer won’t stop looking until they find him.”
“In a city of countless people.” The little girl drained her glass with the action of a seasoned drinker, sighing and licking her lips.
“He stands out,” Gorham said carefully. Is she already so pessimistic? Was she born this way?
“Well, assume they do bring him,” Rose said. “I’ll then have work to do. And though I have ideas about what that is, there will be much preparation.” She was talking more quietly now, as if to herself, looking around the room, searching for someone else.
“And what about me?”
“You?” She stared at Gorham again, her eyes piercing and intelligent. Her mother used to look at him like that. A city of countless people, and that’s far too small for you, he thought.
“Do you want me to …?” he said, waving vaguely at the books, the papers.
“I want you to help save the people of Echo City,” she said softly. “I have ways and means for you to get your word out there. You still have networks? Watchers ready to spread information, should the need arise?”
“Yes, there are some. Though many have been silent for a long time.”
The girl nodded. “Caution. That’s good, in peaceful times. But now is no time for caution. Now is the time for chaos, Gorham. I want you to organize that chaos.”
He shook his head. Am I supposed to understand all this?
“Everyone needs to go south to Skulk Canton. If all the assumptions come in just as we want—they bring Rufus here, he’s amenable, my work progresses as fast as I hope, the results are successful—then we’ll be on our way there too, as soon as we can. And we’ll take with us the means for people to cross the desert.”
“We will?” he asked, wide-eyed.
Rose smiled. And there again, in her eyes, Nadielle.
“Spread the word, Gorham. Come with me.” She stood quickly, leaning against the table to steady herself, face paling.
“Are you—”
“I’m fine.” She smirked at him. “I was just born, you know.” She led him from the room, crossed the womb-vat chamber, and headed behind the three ruined vats. Nadielle had never let him go behind there, but he’d explored while waiting for Rose to be birthed. As well as the large curtained routes that led out into the Echo, he’d found three locked doors and one open. Behind the open door was a room with walls full of deep holes. No torch shone in there could reach the end, and he’d wondered what strange chopped things might have made them. Now perhaps he’d find out.
Rose unlocked each of the three locked doors by stroking her hand across a spread of moss on the door’s surface. The moss changed color, the doors flexed and swung open, and when she shone her oil torch inside, she smiled.
“Very good,” she said. “I remembered these were here, but I never knew how effective …” She trailed off, talking to herself again.
Everything she knows is like a memory, Gorham thought. I wonder what she knows about me? It was an uncomfortable thought—she was only a girl—but Nadielle had always claimed that her mind felt far older than her body. How confusing, how challenging to have experience and knowledge that did not match physical age. Indeed, in the world of the Bakers, what was physical age? A measure of time that they could contradict and tease. Their womb vats and what grew inside them defied time, and flesh artistry was only a small part of their talent.
“What are these places?” Gorham asked. The first room she had unlocked contained dozens of wooden boxes fixed to the walls, and shapes flittered at its shadowy extremes.
“These are our communications to the world,” she said. “Bats in here.” She pointed along at the other doors, naming each one. “Red-eared lizards, sleekrats, and …” She waved him over and they approached the final door together. It was open only a handbreadth, and the darkness inside seemed heavy and thick. There was no sound coming from within, but Gorham sensed a potential that was almost deafening.
“In here, more-unusual ways to send your message.” She shoved the door open and shone her torch inside. The ceiling to the room was open, rising into a dense darkness that seemed to go up and up. Its walls were lined with what looked like flaking paper flicking in the breeze—and then Gorham saw that it was not paper at all, but wings. There were thousands of moths in the room, settled on the walls and apparently asleep. They seemed unconcerned at the light, and only a few took flight. The floor was scattered with dead moths, but only a small number. They clung, waiting, and he imagined the secret sound of thousands of fluttering wings.
“You should send the moths first. I’ll tell you how they all work.”
“And what will you be doing?”
“I have a vat to prepare,” Rose said. “It’s all up to time.”
“Time and assumptions.”
“Those too.” Rose stared into the room for a while, lost and daydreamy again.
She’s not even a day old and she’s trying to save a world, Gorham thought. He reached out and took her hand, and she gave him a brief squeeze before heading back to her rooms. Her rooms. She’s the Baker now. He followed, shivering when he thought of Nadielle, where she was at that moment, and what she might be facing.
Rose went to one of the many cabinets, opening and closing several doors, frowning as she looked for something. She paused, concentrating, then spun around and crossed to another cabinet. Behind the first door she opened was the bottle she sought. She brought it across to Gorham and unscrewed its lid. There was a new sense of urgency about her now. Even the act of sitting and eating together, so recently completed, seemed a world away.
“I’m going to give you—”
“You’re chopping me?” he asked, stepping back. The bottle looked ancient in her young girl’s hands, the glass uneven and distorted, coated in the dust of ages.
“No,” she said sharply. “Aiding. Gorham, this won’t hurt, it won’t damage, and … even if it did, you can’t think of yourself now. If I could chop you quickly enough, send you up with the message to spread yourself, I would. There are ways and means. But it would take far too long.”
“But this?” he asked, nodding at the bottle.
“A gentle nudge in the right direction. Take this, sit in the moth room, repeat a short message again and again, and your voice will implant that message in the moths. They’ll leave and spread it through the city. Same again for the other creatures. It’ll be a dream in the ears of sleepers or an epiphany in those awake.”
Gorham blinked, taking in what she had said. “Those rooms, they�
��re always ready?”
“And they’ve been used in the past. That’s how I know they work.”
“But with methods like that, you could change the city. Steer events, influence …”
Rose stared at him, her silence speaking volumes. Then she tipped the bottle, spilling a splash of its contents into its upturned lid.
“The moths first,” she said, “because they’ll be most effective. Every message sent is one life saved, or a hundred if the listener spreads the word, or a thousand. And the only people who’ll live past what’s happening here will be those who take heed.”
Gorham tried to comprehend what she was telling him. I can’t carry that responsibility. But he realized instantly how self-absorbed that was. Rose was right—this was so much more than him. It was so much more than all of them. That was why Nadielle had left him.
Rose swayed a little, and he saw the weakness in her. She isn’t going to last, he thought, and a momentary panic was subsumed beneath a determination to do whatever needed doing. They might not have very long.
“Will you know when …?” he asked, thinking of Nadielle.
“Perhaps. I’m not sure.” She held the lid out to him and he took it from her, swallowing the potion and tasting mepple petals, stale cheese, and vinegar. It was not altogether unpleasant.
“The moths,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I’ve always hated moths.”
“That’s because they want it that way.” She smiled softly, then turned to leave. “I’ll be working on the vat if you need me.”
“Thank you,” he said, unsure of what for. He watched her exit the room, then followed without pause. He suddenly felt part of—instead of apart from—this incredible place for the first time. And as he approached the moth room he felt a burgeoning sense of hope that had been absent for so long.
The terror is rising, go south to Skulk … the terror is rising, go south to Skulk …
He kept his eyes closed because his own fear was still there. He could sense them moving around him, approaching but not quite touching. He felt the soft draft from their wings and the soundless yet loaded movement of their bodies through the air around his head and face. Perhaps they were dusting him, but he could not quite feel that. What he did sense was that they were listening.
