by Tim Lebbon
“I don’t know,” Peer said. She grabbed at a woman walking by. “Wait! What’s happening?”
“South to Skulk,” the woman said. “Haven’t you heard? That’s what’s best.”
“The Marcellans have ordered that?”
The woman had walked on, but at that she paused and turned back, barely sparing Nophel a glance. “Ha! The Marcellans? You’re joking, aren’t you? They don’t—”
There was another thud that traveled up through Peer’s feet and set her teeth ringing. Somewhere far away, something fell, heavy stones tumbling and crushing. The flow of humanity paused for a moment, then continued on its way, voices a little quieter than before, a little more afraid.
“There’s another one,” the woman whispered. “If you’ve got your heads on right, you’ll come with us.”
“But who told you?”
“Who? People just … know. The terror is rising; go south to Skulk.”
“We can’t,” Peer said. The woman looked at Nophel properly then, a spark of interest in her eyes. Then she turned and went on her way.
“Right, well, that’s got me crapping in my trousers,” Alexia said.
“Easy … for you to say,” Nophel mumbled. “So are we going or not?”
As they set off for Crescent, across the flow of people, it felt as if Nophel was leading the way.
Beside the street at a major crossroads lay the bodies of three Scarlet Blades. They had been dragged to one side and left there, food for rockzards and other carrion creatures. People poured past, heading south for the Tharin. Though Peer could not see that far, she knew that the river crossings would be thronged, and beyond there would be streets filled with panicked, desperate refugees. Nothing like this had ever happened in her lifetime. The whole city was moving.
The terror is rising; go south to Skulk, the woman said, and it had echoed with the sound of something repeated.
The ground shook. The impact was so great that the air before her seemed to vibrate, and the shape and color of the city changed. What is that? she thought, stumbling into a wall to one side. She blinked, took in a deep breath, and realized that, in all the streets she could see, people had fallen down. They recovered quickly, and soon the flow of humanity was moving once again. But for just that moment the city had been still and prostrate.
A cloud of dust rose in the distance where a building had collapsed.
“Won’t the Marcellans be doing something?” Alexia asked, staring back and up the long hillside to the spires of Hanharan Heights.
“You tell me,” Peer said. “You worked for them.”
“They’ll be debating a course of action,” Nophel said, laughing, then coughing.
“They’ll be doing something,” Alexia said. But she did not sound convinced.
“We have to go against the flow,” Peer said. She looked out across the northern parts of Course at the splash of green in the distance. Crescent. That was their destination, but between here and there were rivers of people flowing south. Escaping something, she thought. We should be going with them. But they had something important to do. These people could flee to Skulk, but that place was still a part of Echo City. If what was rising was as terrible as she feared—as terrible as it felt—they had to go farther. And the only person who might help them do that was the Baker.
“We could go down through the Echoes,” Alexia said.
“You know the way from here?”
“From a long time ago,” she said. “There was a time … With the Blades, we used the First Echo to bring people back to Hanharan Heights.”
“People?”
“Dissidents.” She glanced away, because there was a lie in her voice. Peer no longer cared. Perhaps none of that really mattered anymore.
“The city’s going to change,” she said, but at the back of her mind the change was greater than she could voice. The city is going to die.
“This way,” Alexia said.
As they worked their way along the street, there was another terrible tremor. Tiles slipped from rooftops, injuring dozens in the streets below, and weaker buildings slumped in their foundations. The dead Scarlet Blades were already covered in a film of dust, and Peer noticed that Alexia averted her eyes as they passed them by. Maybe she knows them.
They pushed across the surge of people and made their way back up to the Marcellan Canton wall. Go south to Skulk, someone kept whispering, and though Peer looked, she could not see who the whisperer was.
“It’s history exploding,” a man’s voice said. Peer glanced around, and a short fat man was staring directly at her. He was well dressed, his skin was smooth, his hands soft and hair well cut. A lawyer, perhaps, or someone who worked in the upper echelons of the Marcellans’ widespread governing network.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“History. Down there.” He nodded at the ground, whispering in case the Echoes heard. “Exploding. There’s so much of it, see? We’ve been building on it forever, letting the old times sink down and fade away without saying a proper goodbye. There are phantoms down there that don’t know they’re dead, and they say there are whole civilizations, whole cities, just going along like they’re the here and now. And the Garthans!” He waved one hand and gazed about surreptitiously, though they were surrounded by a hundred other people. “They’re the players of the past. Explorers, they call them. But, no. Players. Manipulators!”
“You really think—”
“Hush, girl. I don’t think; I know. It’s history exploding. It’s been under pressure for so long, and now it’s all coming back.” His face paled, and suddenly he did not seem to be enjoying his rumor-mongering anymore. “Coming back to haunt us.” Then he was gone, pushing away from her as though he had contaminated Peer by telling her his ideas.
“Come on,” Alexia said. “Through the gate, along the wall, next alleyway.” They forced their way against the flow, passing into Marcellan without seeing any sign of the Scarlet Blades that should be guarding it. As they worked their way along the base of the wall, it was not long before they realized why.
The four Blades had been battered and crushed to death. Around them in the street lay the bodies of those they had taken with them—maybe ten people, around whom the crowds parted in silent respect. At least one of the bodies was that of a child.
“I don’t want to see any more,” Peer said.
“One thing you learn in the Blades: Civilization balances on a knife edge.” Alexia tugged Nophel onward, and Peer went with them. “It’s the alley behind those poor bastards.”
“You won’t escape them there.” The short fat woman was sitting ten steps from the dead Blades, a slashed red tunic around her shoulders. She bore a terrible wound across her stomach. Peer thought she must be bleeding to death.
“Escape who?”
“The outsiders. Haven’t you heard? Dragarians—invading from the north. Garthans—from below.” She rocked slowly back and forth, panting, and Peer wondered which corpse she mourned.
“Peer,” Alexia said, and Peer was happy to be led away.
“Outsiders!” The woman’s voice carried to them, and there were others shouting at her to Shut the fuck up, and Keep it to yourself, and You’re scaring my children.
“Here,” Alexia said, indicating a half-open door.
The ground shook, people screamed, and a building fell close by. Whatever it is, it’s really big. Alexia steered Nophel inside first, and Peer followed, glad to be free of the crowd.
The Scarlet Blade house had been ransacked. Any spare weapons were gone, and someone had defecated on the dead Blades’ table. Peer was amazed that, while fleeing for their life, someone would take the time to do that.
“Over here,” Alexia said. “I remember using this one a couple of times before.” Against the stone wall stood a huge wooden storage unit, shelves now swept clean of whatever they might have held. They waded through piles of smashed plates, torn sheets, and shattered storage jars shining amid spilled
food, and Alexia pried with her sword behind the unit.
“Help me … pull!”
Peer and the Unseen heaved and pulled, propping their feet against the wall to give added leverage, and, without warning, the unit suddenly tipped and fell. Behind it was an old door, bolted into the wall five times. It took several smashes from Alexia’s sword handle on each bolt to get them sliding.
Behind the door was a spiral staircase heading down and, piled in a nook in the wall, several oil torches.
“We’ll see daylight again soon,” Alexia said. But hers was a forced hope, and Peer could see that. Darkness had never seemed so forbidding. The three of them stared down the stairwell, listening for the sounds of things rising below, sniffing the air, and wondering just how mad they must be.
Peer picked up an oil torch, lit it on the first strike, and handed it to Nophel. “We’ll need our sword hands free,” she said. The injured man smiled, ghastly and wan in the torchlight.
“Hate to say it,” Nophel said to Alexia, “but do you know the way?”
The Unseen smiled softly, lit her own torch, and started down the stairs.
They traveled two miles through a time gone by, taking it in turns to support Nophel, and all the while the cloying silence was more terrifying than the noise of the crowds they had left behind. In the darkness lay a potential for terrible violence, and that potential was being realized more and more. They heard deep rumbles in the distance—behind them, they thought, though they could not be certain. Some of those rumbles seemed to echo as roars. And sometimes these roars grew and grew, and they had to try to find cover and lie down as the ground shook and dust and rocks fell from the shadows above them.
What are we really doing? Peer thought. The city was shaking to pieces, the population was panicking, and her only aim was to reach the Baker with a canteen of cooling, thickening blood. Rufus might be insane, and the Dragarians thought he was their god. Malia was dead. Many other people were dead. Am I really that mad?
Yet again, she wished Penler was with her. Dependable Penler, whose knowledge and intelligence would see him through these confusions. And, thinking of him, she realized that his life was about to be turned upside down as well.
“They’re all going to Skulk,” she said to the shadows, but Alexia and Nophel seemed not to hear.
The Unseen led them uncannily across Crescent, transposing Peer’s memories of her journey to the laboratory aboveground onto the dead landscape they now walked. Old trails down here echoed the path of current trails above, and Nophel managed the journey without a single complaint. His wound had stopped bleeding for now, but the amount of blood he had lost was shocking. The Dragarian crossbow bolt protruded from his chest just below his collarbone, pinning his dirty cloak to his body. Even if he survived the internal injuries, Peer thought, infection might well kill him.
When they finally drew close to the Baker’s subterranean rooms, Peer prepared for the welcoming committee. She glanced around nervously, listening for the sounds of flying things or the cautious tread of the Pserans, but the Echo was theirs alone. She found the door they had entered before, pushed it open, and was suddenly convinced of what would be awaiting them.
Gorham and Nadielle never made it back. They’re lying dead way down where the deepest Echoes merge with myth and legend, killed by whatever’s shaking the city.
She entered first, walking into the vast womb-vat chamber alone. Lights still shone, but several of the vats had broken and collapsed, slumped to the ground like giant melted candles.
One still bubbled and spat.
And then Gorham emerged from behind the vat. He froze when he saw her, but she had never been so glad to see anyone in her life.
“Gorham,” she said, and ran for him. He seemed changed by whatever he had been through, but she would not ask him yet. He looked surprised at her eagerness to see him. Both of them had new histories to learn. But right then, the feel of the present when she held him was all that mattered.
Nophel looked through the wide doorway at the amazing room beyond. Peer hugged a man, Alexia stood inside the doorway looking around in amazement, shadows shifted, air moved, and scenes of destruction were countered by the presence of the single huge vat that still appeared whole.
These were the Baker’s laboratories, and it was nothing like coming home.
He took a step forward and groaned. His vision blurred, and he tried to shout at the unfairness of things. All this way, I only need to set eyes on her before …
Nophel’s world upended, and soft hands eased him to the ground.
Gorham wanted to talk with Peer, discover what she had been through, connect with her again after being apart for so long. He had never believed that connection would be possible again, not after what he had done to her. But something had changed. And he was not foolish enough to believe that the change was only in her.
She told him about Malia. He told her about Nadielle and Rose. Alexia was introduced, Rose came and took the water canteen containing Rufus’s blood, and the Pserans carried Nophel into the vat chamber.
“The Baker’s blood son,” Peer said. Rose paused for the briefest moment to stare at him, then walked away from them all. Peer stared after her, eyes growing wide as Gorham explained more.
“So she’s your daughter?”
“I …” Gorham could not say, because he had not yet come to terms with the reality of that himself.
Rose had climbed the ladder beside the vat, and she sat there with her potions and mixes, carefully extracting blood from the canteen and doing something with it that none of them could see.
“I so need to rest,” Peer said. “To wash, and eat, and sleep for a day. But it feels as if it’s only just begun.”
“The whole city’s moving south,” Alexia said. She looked tired and drawn, and already she was reminding Gorham very much of Malia. There was an inner strength to her that could never be touched by physical tiredness, and she looked like someone who would get what she wanted. Unlike Malia, her eyes held a restrained humor. He liked that. In the face of all that was happening, it made her seem so human.
“We’re in Rose’s hands now,” Gorham said. “Every chance feels small, but without her there’s no chance at all.”
Nophel mumbled, still unconscious. The Pserans had quickly melted away after bringing him in, and Alexia crouched by his side, carefully examining his wound.
“It needs cleaning,” she said. “And he needs medicine.”
The new Baker returned to them, her girl’s body and face already appearing older than any of theirs. She’s fading even more, Gorham thought, and he only hoped she lasted long enough.
“Do you have medicine?” Alexia asked her.
The girl stared at the prone man, and there was something in her that Gorham had not seen before. Since her birthing she had been busy—either working at the vat, or thinking about what to do next, reading the Baker’s books and charts, and making esoteric notes in a thick pad. Now, for the first time, she was still and contemplative.
“Carry him through to my rooms,” she said.
“Seeing you is what’s kept him alive,” Peer said.
Rose looked at her, then turned and walked away without replying.
Peer took a step forward, but Gorham caught her arm.
“And you thought Nadielle was cold?” he said. She smiled at him, and that warm flush he’d felt upon seeing her enter the laboratory returned. They both had so much to say, with so little time.
“I’ll tell you when I’m ready,” Rose said from where she’d climbed back up to the vat’s lip. “You should all rest. When the time comes, we’ll have to go south, to Skulk.”
“And then?” Peer asked.
The girl looked at her curiously, as if considering a specimen of something she had never seen before. “I remember so much about you,” she said.
Gorham felt Peer shiver against his side.
“What will happen?” Gorham asked.
“T
hen we see whether any of this will work.” Rose turned back to the vat.
“Come on,” he said. “There’s some food left. And wine. We’ll drink to success.” He helped Alexia carry the unconscious man through the vat chamber and into the rooms beyond, and the air buzzed with unspoken news.
Peer seemed changed. She held her injured hip, but there was a strength to her that had not been there when she’d offer him a dismissive wave goodbye. Her eyes were haunted, but she had a smile for him. He hoped that was a good enough start.
They placed Nophel on the Baker’s bed, then sat at a table and passed around a bottle of wine. Before long, Alexia leaned back in her chair and slept, and Peer had to settle Gorham when the Unseen woman began to flicker from view.
Gorham and Peer lay together on the other side of the bed. He watched her close her eyes and sleep, but he refused to do so. This might be the end, and he wanted to spend every moment he had left looking at the woman he had wronged. But as her breathing deepened, he, too, closed his eyes, and he rested his hand on hers as dreams carried him away.
Come with me, the voice said. Please, come with me. It was a child’s voice, yet it carried the weight of ages. Nophel saw the words in his father’s mouth, yet his lips spelled something different, because he had gone against the Dragarians to save his son, not to doom him. There was a pain in his chest and his father frowned, but Dane could do nothing, because he was already dead. For an instant briefer than a blink, Nophel saw the fat Marcellan as he was now—taken apart in the darkness beneath the city.
His eyes snapped open, and his mother was looking down at him.
“Please, come with me.” She was whispering. She looked in Nophel’s one good eye, but her hands were elsewhere, sprinkling something warm and dry across his bared chest.
Nophel raised his head and looked down at the wound. The bolt had somehow been removed without him waking, and now the girl—the new Baker, two steps from his mother and yet still very much her—was tending the ragged hole left behind. It was red and inflamed, and the dust she dropped hissed slightly as it touched his skin.
“It smells,” he whispered, voice harsh and dry.
