by Tim Lebbon
“Fine,” the woman said. “I’ll pick you a nice spot on the wall.” She kicked at the door handle behind her and shoved the door open with her boot. They all knew that Nophel would never hang on the wall. If and when the time came, he’d disappear quickly and quietly, and his body would float down into the Chasm with so many others.
I scare them, he thought, and he glared at the soldiers as he passed by. A couple of them glowered back, but their eyes flickered away before his did. The others did not watch him through the door at all.
He entered the long, wide corridor that ran the length of the Marcellans’ living quarters, hurrying quickly past displays of rare artwork, sculptures, and religious artifacts from thousands of years of Hanharan dominance. As always, he spared a quick glance for the glass-enclosed finger bone—the priests and their more-devout followers believed fervently that it was the index finger from Hanharan’s left hand—then paused outside Dane’s door.
A moment of doubt gripped him. Is it really Dane I need to tell? But of all the Marcellans, Dane was the closest to a friend he had. And there really was no one else.
Heart thumping from exertion, eye wide as though it could retain the dread image of what he had seen, he thumped once on the door and then entered.
Dane was standing naked at a table in the far corner of the room, cooking slash and inhaling the fumes through a series of wet pipes. The flesh of his ample thighs and buttocks quivered as he breathed in, and Nophel heard the sighs of gentle pleasure. In the center of the room, reclining on the vast round bed, two naked women idly stroked each other. One of them glanced up, apparently unconcerned at being disturbed. And then she saw Nophel.
“Oh!” she gasped. She stared at his face, still shadowed by the hood, her brazen nakedness a sign of her sick fascination. I’m not a person to her, Nophel thought, and he felt the familiar flush of shame that he had spent his entire life trying to push down.
Dane turned around, taking a moment to focus. “Nophel,” he said.
“We must talk,” Nophel said.
Dane pulled the pipe to his lips again and pursed them around its end—a delicate action for such a fat man. His rounded stomach hung so low that his genitals were almost hidden from view.
“Poor man,” the other naked woman said. She had slipped from the bed and stood, unashamed, scratching idly at her stomach with one hand while she looked at him.
“Leave us if you will, ladies,” Dane said.
“But, Dane,” the first woman began, “we were just getting—”
“It’s important,” Nophel said. He was looking at the women as he spoke, and he took several steps forward, knowing that the burning oil lamps would cast more light onto his face from this angle.
The standing woman stepped back, crossing both hands over her sex.
“Tomorrow,” Dane said. He turned his back on the women and breathed in more slash, waving Nophel over.
The women left without dressing, exiting through a door hidden in an expanse of books lining one wall. Nophel had never been in there, though he knew it led to a series of stairs and corridors—Dane’s own private route down into the vastness of Hanharan Heights. He felt a pang of jealousy that Dane would let two whores use this way yet not let him, but he shoved it aside. This was not about favors, or even trust. Both men wanted what was best for the city, and though their outlooks might differ, they came together about the bigger picture.
“It’s been a while,” Dane said. He turned and smiled. “You’re sure I can’t interest you in …?” He nodded at the door through which the women had vanished. “Rebec really is very good. She does things with her lips and a mouthful of dart root that’ll have you calling to Hanharan’s divine cock for mercy.”
Nophel shook his head. Dane’s blasphemy never surprised him. “They pity me,” he said.
“You interest them. They’d explore you.”
“A gateway opened in Dragar’s Canton.”
For a moment Dane’s smile remained as he blinked away the effects of slash, absorbing what Nophel had said. Then his face dropped and he became the politician Nophel knew so well.
“A gateway?”
“Or a door. Something. It was quick.” Nophel breathed deeply, inhaling the scents of cooked slash, wine, and sex. He indulged in none of them, and the odors stirred little within him.
Dane waddled to the bed and lifted his gown, swinging it around his shoulders with a surprising deftness. Fat he might be, and cursed with many vices, but Nophel had long suspected that Dane was stronger and fitter than he looked. Perhaps deception came naturally to such a man, or maybe he had simply taken advantage of circumstance.
“You’re certain of what you saw?” he asked.
Nophel nodded.
“The Northern Scope, it’s fit and well? Healthy?”
“There was no fault. It wasn’t a blur in the mirror or an inconsistency in the Scope’s vision. Quick, granted, but I’m sure. Part of a dome slid open. Something came out. The dome closed again.” He shut his eyes for a beat, remembering what he’d seen to ensure it tallied with his description. Something came out—that was the part that still confused him.
“What came out?”
“I don’t know.”
“Hmm.” Dane regarded him for a moment, then came closer and touched his shoulder. “Sit with me.” He walked around the bed to an area of floor seats, the table in the center bearing several opened wine bottles and a scatter of glasses and goblets. There was also the remains of a meal. “You’re well?” he asked.
“I’m as fine as I can be,” Nophel said.
“Then we have a problem that needs investigating.”
“You’ll take it to the Council?”
“Of course.” Dane eased himself into a seat, the upholstery expanding and stretching to take his weight. Nophel sat opposite, uncomfortable as ever in such plush surroundings. He preferred his own rooms lower down in the vast sprawl of buildings that made up Hanharan Heights—book-lined, simple, with the smell of the past hanging in the air from old manuscripts and older maps. Nophel had once met Sprote Felder, the renowned explorer of the Echoes, and the two had talked for hours about things most Echoians would never even know. Nophel respected that man—perhaps envied him too—but he was as much an explorer as Felder. The only difference was, he explored history through his mind. And the history he sought was all to do with the Bakers—those damned women who had cursed him so.
“And what will they do?” he asked.
“They’ll want to talk to you. To ask exactly what you saw.” Dane sighed and poured himself a large glass of ruby wine. “Then they’ll debate the veracity of your account, argue once again over your control of the Scopes. Express their continuing mistrust at your heritage.”
“I gave them the Baker.”
“Some don’t see it that way, Nophel. You know that well enough.” He sipped at the wine, nodded, then clunked the glass down on the table. “They’ll argue and agree, then dispute and call for more meetings, and it’ll take them three days to get to where I’ve arrived in two heartbeats.”
“Where you’ve arrived …”
“Knowing that we can take no chances.” Dane shook his head, the metal bonds in his tightly tied hair tinkling together. “Dragar’s is given its privacy, and most have forgotten it’s even there. It’s a blank spot on the city, Nophel, but you know as well as I that we keep a good watch. That’s partly what they’re for.” He nodded vaguely at the ceiling. “And also part of the reason why you and I are such good friends.”
“Maybe it happens a lot,” Nophel said. “Maybe they’re always slipping in and out, and it’s just that I happened to see it today.”
“Do you believe that?”
Nophel thought about what he’d seen, trying to make it clear in his mind. “No,” he said softly.
“No. That’s why you need to go and investigate.”
“Me?” He was shocked, but pleased as well. Nophel knew he was a monster to most, but he had n
ever denied the presence of his own ego. It was something to do with fitting in.
“You’re quiet,” Dane said. “You can move well. People …” He shrugged. “You know.”
“People avoid me.”
“Yes. So while I take this to the Council and let them bicker like old women, go and look for me, Nophel. Find out what came out and what it means. And bring it to me.”
Nophel nodded, running his fingers around the rim of an empty wineglass. When he looked, a fine line of lip paint slashed across his finger, and he thought of where else those lips had been. He felt no longings and never had.
“I’ll need something from you,” he said. “Something to help me.”
Dane raised his hands in a whatever-you-want gesture.
“I need to be more than quiet and unseen. More than unnoticed. I need to be invisible.”
“Blue Water?” Dane gasped.
Nophel nodded again.
“But … there’s very little left. Only drops. And nobody has ever survived it.” Dane stood and paced around the table. His robe knocked over his wineglass and it spilled, dripping onto the pale carpet. That stain will always be there, Nophel thought, long after I’m gone. “You know we tried it on some of the Blades, Nophel, and …”
“They died.”
“They disappeared. Everyone who took it—just gone.”
“Everyone who took it wasn’t the Baker’s blood son.”
Dane stared at him, and for the first time ever, Nophel saw fear in that fat politician’s eyes. He called us friends, he thought, and we have been for a long time. But sometime in the future, he’ll become so afraid of where I came from that …
“Have it,” Dane said, nodding slowly. “I’ll take you down myself.”
… that he’ll have to kill me. When that time came, Nophel would need to be ready.
Dane led him through the hidden bookcase door. It seemed that today was filled with privileges.
Peer could not help watching Gorham as he prepared drinks for them. The way he moved, his smallest mannerisms, the subtle twitch in his left eye when he was concentrating, all belonged to the man she had once known. Yet here he was now, that same man—leader of the Watchers and a stranger to her all over again.
And he had given her up. Their loving and caring for each other, their tentative plans for a future, all had been discarded when the need of the Watchers grew too great. He’d sacrificed her to the brutality of the Marcellans and their religious pogrom. She thought of that grinning torturer, sweating and slavering as he drove the air shards into her arm, knowing that they could never be withdrawn. Her screams had barely covered his grunts, or the chanting of that bastard Hanharan priest. You’re supposed to love everyone! she’d pleaded between long sessions of torture, but he had been only too keen to put her right.
Hanharan loves everyone, he had replied. All he asks is that you love him back.
I love him! Peer had screamed. I love him; I love Hanharan. And then she’d seen that priest’s self-righteous, sad smile and noticed that he was actually rather beautiful.
I think we both know you don’t mean that deep in your heart, the priest had whispered. And then the grinning man, and the air shards, and later the hammer when she realized she could never mean that, could never really love the myth of Hanharan. And neither could she pretend.
“I left a man in Skulk,” she said. Gorham paused in his movement—only briefly, but it was there. “He’s been there for a long time. He wrote about the Dragarians and how they were wronged long ago by the city and its rulers. He expressed pity for them, and the Marcellans banished him. A good man.” She wondered what Penler was doing now and wished she could be with him. They would talk and argue, debate and agree, and sometimes they’d discuss only the quality of the evening’s wine or what the weather might do tomorrow. But with Penler, it was always deeper. Those vines draw such goodness from deep down where no one goes, he might say, or, Imagine the things that weather saw before it reached the city, and the things it will see beyond.
“I’m sorry, Peer.”
“It doesn’t matter. Only Rufus matters.”
“So he comes out of the desert without a name, and you name him yourself. He speaks Echoian, though not fluently.”
“He is fluent,” Peer insisted, “but it’s a child’s fluency. Haven’t you noticed? He speaks Echoian like a child.”
“A murderous child.” He brought her a drink and, despite everything, she felt her whole body relax slightly when she smelled the five-bean.
“That was an accident,” she said, remembering the Border Spite Rufus had killed after they crossed the Levels. She had not yet told Gorham about that and wasn’t sure she would. Perhaps the time to tell had passed. And maybe she didn’t trust him.
“But it shows he’s dangerous. If he really does come from elsewhere—”
“How the crap can you still doubt it? You saw how he reacted to Malia’s truthbugs. He screamed and gibbered, as if whatever he saw was just too terrible.” She shivered at the memory, wondering how many others had been subjected to their intrusion. “Has anyone else you’ve used those things on ever acted that way?”
“No. The bugs usually cause calm, not fear.”
“His clothing? The things he carries?”
“There are people in Echo City who might have made all that.”
“Really?” She drank some more, looking at Gorham through the steam and trying to read his face. I should hate him, she thought.
“You must hate me,” he said. Peer laughed softly. “What?” he asked.
“Gorham,” she said, and they both heard the echo of old affections in how she spoke his name. We should be asking about each other, filling in those missing three years, but we’re dropped into the importance of the here and now.
Malia entered, her stern face different. She was frightened and amazed, excited and nervous. At least one Watcher now believed in Rufus.
“He’s asleep,” she said. “I gave him some vinegared stoneshroom to help him rest.”
“Thank you,” Peer said. Malia nodded and offered the beginnings of a smile.
“So now we need to talk,” Gorham said.
“Is this it?” Malia closed the door behind her, pouring a mug of five-bean for herself. The room was an old administration office for the jail, sparse and bleak, but the Watchers had dragged some comfortable furniture down here over time. It felt damp and had soaked up the atmosphere of the place, but it was somewhere to rest.
“I’m not sure we can—” Gorham began, glancing at Peer.
“Hanharan’s cock, Gorham! After what she went through because of us, and what she’s put herself through for Rufus? Honor her with your trust, at least.”
Peer glanced at Gorham, and he lowered his eyes, abashed. He swilled the five-bean in his mug and seemed to study the dregs, like some old seer trying to read the future.
“There’s something happening,” he said, still not looking up from the mug. “Noises heard deep down. The Garthans are worried.”
“How can you know that?” Peer asked cautiously, thinking of Penler’s haunted words: The Garthans are never afraid of anything.
“You’ve heard of Sprote Felder. He’s … a friend of ours.”
“A Watcher?”
“He doesn’t call himself that.”
“What sort of noises have them worried?” Peer asked. This is what I heard from Penler … these same rumors …
“Something unknown.”
“And one of the Custodian priests,” Malia said. “We’ve talked to him as well. He and his people believe something is coming.”
“Maybe they mean Rufus Kyuss,” Peer quipped, but there was little humor in her voice, and neither of her companions smiled.
“God of new things,” Gorham said. “Maybe he’s here to welcome in the future.”
“You can’t be—”
“Of course I’m not serious!” he said, standing and turning his back on Peer.
“Others in the city are nervous as well,” Malia said. “Bellia Ton?”
“I don’t know her,” Peer said.
“River reader. Her, others, all sensing something. And now you come to us with Rufus, and …”
“And the Watchers may not have to watch for much longer,” Gorham said. “We’ve never known exactly what it might entail, and we still don’t—but the end-times we’ve long expected for Echo City might be here at last.”
Peer shook her head, confused at what was being said.
“This is it,” Malia said. Peer had never heard fear in the woman’s voice before, but it was there now. “This is what the Watchers have been waiting for forever. Even before you came, we were starting to suspect.”
“How does Rufus figure in this?” Peer asked.
“He changes everything!” Malia said.
Peer looked from Malia to Gorham, and he continued staring into his mug. But his eyes were alight. Her heart thumped, and she felt a queasy excitement.
“Your friend from afar might just be our salvation,” Gorham said. “And I can’t believe his appearance is a coincidence. If Echo City ends, we have to leave to survive. And if he truly came from across the Bonelands …” He looked up at Peer at last. “We have to get him to the Baker.”
“Yeah,” Malia said.
“But we should tell someone, shouldn’t we?” Peer asked. “There must be people we should tell?”
“Who?” Gorham asked. “Nobody in power. After they took you, the Marcellans crushed the Watchers down. You already know what happened to Bren.” He glanced at Malia. “The whole upper echelon of the Watchers’ organization was wiped out, imprisoned, or—”
“Driven underground,” Malia finished for him. “Some of them—the cowards—ran. Never seen them since.”
“So here I am,” Gorham said. “Leading the Watchers. Making decisions that might affect everyone.”
“I won’t pity you your position,” Peer said quietly. “I can’t.”
“And I respect that. But I need you to understand why this has to remain secret. We can’t risk anyone finding out about Rufus. If word of this gets to the Marcellans …” He shrugged.