Echo City

by Tim Lebbon

“You dare to bargain with me?” he said quietly.

  “I merely—”

  “You dare to withhold something from me?”

  “I can’t be like this. I’ve seen what happens to them.”

  Dane stood quickly and reached out, his meaty fist closing perfectly around Nophel’s throat. He squeezed, his face remaining calm and composed. He raised one eyebrow. “Don’t take me for a fool!”

  “I know you’re no fool,” Nophel croaked, and Dane released his hold, turning away. He wiped both hands on his robe as he strode back to the slash table.

  “You have such a power now,” Dane said, “but you’re too weak to see it and too scared to use it. Look at you!” He turned again, long pipe hanging from the corner of his mouth. Dragging on the smoke, his eyes widened and glittered as he dropped the pipe and raised his arms. “Look at you! You’re Unseen, Nophel, even more than you were before! Your dead hog of a mother gave you nothing, but her talent has made you what you are now.”

  “And what is that?” Nophel demanded. He was proud at the edge in his voice, the challenge he could still muster in the face of this man’s intimidating authority and power.

  “Mine,” Dane said, tails of slash smoke still curling up from the corners of his mouth. “That’s what you are. Completely. Mine.”

  “No,” Nophel said, but he knew it was true.

  “I have the White Water,” Dane said. “The antidote. If those fools you say you’ve seen had come crawling back instead of losing themselves in the city, maybe I would have given it. Maybe.”

  “Then let me—”

  “After you tell me what the Dragarian said.”

  “You swear?”

  “No, Nophel,” Dane said. “I swear nothing.” He drew on the pipe some more, a gentler draw this time, and then he sat on a giant floor cushion, his robe falling open and displaying the rolls of fat covering his genitals.

  He thinks nothing of me, Nophel said. Such disregard. Such disdain.

  “It said, Baker,” Nophel said. “Then, He will go to her. And he was always ours.”

  Dane closed his eyes. Sighed. And when he stood again, purpose in his stance and expression, Nophel knew that his drink of the White Water was still not assured.

  “You’re looking for anything unusual,” Dane said. “Anything strange.”

  “I see a lot of strange things,” Nophel said.

  “Stranger, then.” Dane stood behind Nophel. The mountain of a man smelled of perfumes and sweat and was still panting from the effort of their ascent.

  The pretense of their relationship had been shredded; Nophel was Dane’s servant. And yet … as they watched the Scope’s images presented on the viewing mirror, Nophel sensed that Dane still held him in some regard. Several times as they’d climbed staircases and opened and closed doors on the way to the viewing room, Nophel had almost asked the Marcellan something plain and cutting, a question he had believed he’d known the answer to for some time: Do you truly believe in the will of Hanharan? But such talk might elicit punishment. Still possessed by the effects of Blue Water he might be, but Nophel had no doubt that Dane could bring him down.

  “We’re looking north,” Nophel said. “I’ll try to find the place on the wall where I met the Unseen.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Her name. It was Alexia.”

  “Ah.”

  “You knew her?” Nophel turned dials and cogs, pulled levers, and a hundred steps above them the Northern Scope was lengthening its skull, projecting its one massive eye farther out over the wall beneath its chest.

  “A Scarlet Blade. She took the Blue Water …” He whistled softly, thinking. “Maybe three years ago, during the Watcher crackdown. She was a good soldier.”

  “She’s bitter now.”

  Dane did not answer, but Nophel sensed no gloating, no anger. Perhaps the Marcellan was sorry.

  “There,” Nophel said. The screen was filled with an image of the northern wall around Hanharan Heights. He tweaked a wheeled button beneath his left hand and the image shifted left, pausing again at the seat where he had met Alexia.

  “If they’re all out there, there must be dozens,” Dane mused.

  “I saw only a few. But the Blue Water continues to work. The removal is … progressive and deeper as time goes by.” He shivered, remembering those gray, empty streets. He never wanted to see them again.

  Dane rested a hand on his shoulder. It surprised Nophel so much that he jumped, knocking a cog and jerking the Scope’s view to the right. That might have hurt it, he thought, but then he felt Dane’s breath close to his right ear, and the Marcellan whispered, “I’ve no wish to hurt you, Nophel. But you’re far more useful to me as you are, for now.” He stood and pulled his hand back, coughing lightly, perhaps even embarrassed at the contact. Nophel thought that it was the only time the man had ever touched him, other than when he grabbed his throat.

  “I need to see the Council,” Dane said.

  “To tell them what the Dragarian said?”

  “That would be the very last thing I’d tell them.”

  He’s trying to say something, Nophel thought. Dane’s tone of voice had changed, become quieter and lower, as if something heavy bore down on him every time he went to speak. Desperate to reveal something to me.

  “You can trust me to watch,” Nophel said. Dane was silent, unbreathing, unmoving. Nophel winced. And now the knife in my back for such presumption?

  “Thank you,” the Marcellan said, and he meant it. “Now look for me. The Baker is dead, but that Dragarian was out there for someone connected to her. Help me find him.”

  “Who is he?”

  “That’s not your concern.”

  “You’ll destroy him like you did the Baker?”

  “Destroy?” Dane laughed softly. “Nophel, I know the hate you still carry for her, and it might disturb you to know this, but we weren’t guilty of your mother’s death.”

  Nophel closed his eyes, trying to will away the sudden nausea. I gave her up to them. “But—” he croaked, then cleared his throat. “But I spied on her, gathered evidence of her heresy. Presented it to you. So who killed her?”

  “The Dragarians,” Dane said. He walked away, and Nophel tried to make sense of the revelation.

  I’m more useful to him as I am, he thought. And as he heard Dane opening the door to leave, Nophel stood, tumbling his chair over backward.

  Dane glanced back across the dimly lit room toward the man he could not see.

  “I don’t believe in Hanharan!” Nophel blurted. His heart was thumping so hard that blood thrummed in his ears, and he had to strain hard to hear Dane’s reply.

  “Just keep watch,” the Marcellan said. And he closed the door on the blasphemy.

  The Baker was waiting for them at the end of the rickety bridge. There was someone with her, and even from a distance Gorham could see that the shape was wrong. Human, yes, but changed. Chopped.

  They’d been running, desperate to reach the exit up from this Echo before Rufus did. They knew that once he was out in the city, he’d either be lost forever or he’d reveal himself and the Scarlet Blades would capture him. After that, it would be a short walk to the crucifixion wall.

  “Has she come to—” Peer began.

  “There’s no guessing with her,” Gorham cut in. He felt his old lover glaring at the back of his head, but he walked on ahead.

  “Have you found him?” Malia called.

  “No,” Nadielle said. “I sent the Pserans deeper to search.”

  “If they find him?” Peer asked.

  “They’ll take him back to my laboratory and keep him safe,” Nadielle said. “They’re grieving, but they’re also mine.”

  “Is she yours too?” Gorham said. The five of them were standing in a rough circle now, and the small, misshapen form at Nadielle’s side was blinking at Gorham with big, wet eyes. She was a woman, but beneath her simple clothing her chest was flat, and her body seemed almost formless. Her lon
g hair hung bound with fine bone clips, her mouth was slightly open, and she looked back and forth between them all, never settling her gaze on one of them for more than a heartbeat. She could have been thirty years old or eighty.

  “Yes,” Nadielle said. “And she’s very special.”

  “So what can she do?” Peer asked. “Fly? Burrow? Juggle?”

  “She can help us find out exactly what’s going on,” Nadielle said, not rising to Peer’s bait.

  Gorham glanced at Peer and shook his head, but then he saw how scared she was. Nadielle’s blocking our way across the bridge, he thought, and he listened for the flap of leathery wings, looked for the pale skin of a surviving Pseran manifesting from the gloom. He wasn’t scared. But there really was no guessing with Nadielle.

  “We need to find Rufus,” Peer said. “That’s the absolute priority, so if she can help us with that—”

  “She can’t,” Nadielle said.

  “Then why are we all standing here like spare cocks?” Malia asked.

  “Rufus has left the Echoes,” Nadielle said. “Another exit, half a mile from here. He’s gone up into Crescent, and last I heard he was heading north.”

  “How do you know?” Peer asked.

  “It doesn’t matter how I know!” Nadielle snapped, and for the first time Gorham saw fear in her eyes. She’s not grieving for the Pseran, he thought. She’s terrified!

  “What do you need?” he asked.

  “You. Come with me. We’re going down, way down, to find out whatever it is that’s got the Garthans so agitated. You told me about Bellia Ton, the river reader. After that I … investigated further. There are other readers realizing that something’s terribly wrong.”

  “But Rufus—” Peer began.

  “Is a part of it all,” Nadielle said, more gently now. “So you’re right, he’s a priority. But something incredible has begun, and I need to know. I need to check.”

  “Know what?” Malia asked. “Check what?”

  But Nadielle ignored the question. Instead, she stroked the small woman’s hair and smiled at her. The woman’s expression did not alter.

  “Why do you need me?” Gorham asked.

  “To read me when we get there.”

  “Read you? I’m no reader. I’ve never done anything like that. I wouldn’t know—”

  “I can teach you. We have to go. Peer, you and Malia need to find Rufus. Malia, use your Watchers, however many are left. Find him, and bring him back down to my rooms. Do it any way you can, but it’s important—it’s imperative—that you keep his existence from the authorities. The Marcellans can’t know about him. Nobody can know about him. Do you understand?”

  “Yeah,” Malia said.

  “Do you understand?” Nadielle was almost shouting now, and Gorham took a step back, frightened for her, frightened of her.

  “Yes,” Peer said. Gorham looked at her, but she would not meet his eye.

  “Because he might be the answer,” Nadielle said, muttering now. “My mother wrote that she wasn’t certain, but it seems it was all true. There’s something in him that meant he survived. Out there, in the Bonelands. Something in his blood.”

  “And you can copy that?” Peer asked.

  “I can try,” Nadielle said. “But only after this.”

  “You’re going with them?” Malia asked Gorham.

  “Yes,” he said. The Baker’s uncertain, and more than that—she’s scared. He was cold and felt the weight of Echo City’s present bearing down upon him. He looked up at the dark ceiling of this place, invisible in the gloom, and imagined all those people up there going about their lives with no concept that everything could be about to change. And then he thought of Rufus. He lived out there for more than twenty years. The idea of that was shattering.

  “We should go,” Nadielle said, and Gorham felt a rush of pure panic. He went to Peer, stood before her, and waited until she met his eyes.

  “I’ll see you soon,” he said. She only nodded, and he resisted the compulsion to reach for her, to hug her until she could understand. “Peer, there’s so much I should say to you.”

  “Starting with sorry again?” she said, glancing at Nadielle and back to Gorham. Then she laughed. It was humorless, that laugh, and bitter, and as she pushed by him, he searched for any sign of regret at uttering it. But her face was hard, her eyes stern.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to her back. She raised one hand in a casual goodbye. As Malia started after Peer, Gorham reached out and grasped her arm.

  “Take care of her,” he whispered. Malia nodded. She knew about grief and loss, and as Gorham watched them crossing the bridge, he felt comforted knowing that Peer was in good hands.

  “Thank you,” Nadielle said when the others were out of earshot. He had never heard her sound so vulnerable, and when she slipped an arm around his waist and kissed his cheek, he wanted to push her away, hear her say something cutting or derisive. He needed her back to how she always was, because weakness did not sit well with the Baker.

  “What the crap is this, Nadielle?”

  “I’m not sure. I have suspicions.” She shivered, hugging her arms across her chest and nodding at the short woman. “She’ll help us find out, one way or another.”

  “You say we’re going deep. To talk to the Garthans? Is she chopped from one of them?”

  “I’ve already spoken with the Garthans,” Nadielle said. “And you’re right, they’re scared. That’s why we’re going deeper than that.”

  Gorham felt his stomach drop, and the hairs on his arms prickled. “Deeper …”

  “Down past the deepest Echo. Deeper than history.”

  “To the Chasm,” Gorham whispered.

  “Something is rising from there. I have to know what.”

  Something is rising … Gorham looked at the chopped woman, her wide, dulled eyes, and wondered what in the name of every god true or false she could know.

  They returned to the Baker’s laboratories to gather equipment and so that Nadielle could secure her rooms against intruders. She went about things with a distracted air, and several times Gorham tried to speak to her. But events had taken on a weight of their own, and she remained silent and distant.

  The two surviving Pserans were nowhere to be seen. The thin, slick man who sometimes welcomed Gorham was also absent, and as the Baker’s womb vats bubbled and scratched into the stillness, it resembled a very lonely place.

  The small woman sat on a metal chair close to one of the vats, seemingly unaware of her surroundings. Her eyes were wide. She appeared to be listening.

  Nadielle called Gorham through to her rooms, then opened a trapdoor he had never seen before. “Go down,” she said. “Fetch ropes, climbing equipment, and weapons.”

  He went to Nadielle and reached out to touch her face. She pulled back.

  “Go,” she said. Then she turned away and slipped out into the vast womb-vat hall.

  Gorham glanced around, remembering sweeter times he had spent in here with Nadielle. She had always been a demanding lover, and it crossed his mind now that he had sometimes mistaken a base desperation for passion. All those times he had felt were keen and honest were now taking on a sheen of betrayal. He closed his eyes and tried to remember making love with Peer, but too much time had passed and it was like recalling the memories of a friend.

  Cursing, he descended through the trapdoor. The room at the bottom of the short ladder contained a hoard of objects from the city above. He shook his head in wonder at what Nadielle could achieve and went about gathering equipment for their journey.

  We’re going down, he thought, and once again he shut off the terror that held for him. There were phantoms and Garthans down there, and other creatures less known. Places unseen, old histories built upon, pressed down, hidden away for many eons …

  He found a rope, good and strong. He shouldered it and picked up a wire ring of crampons and a hammer. The most he’d ever climbed was the side of a two-story building.

  The
Echoes were places of darkness and forgotten things, and anything could exist in their blackest depths. There were tales of giant sightless lizards and serpents formed entirely from shadows that made the old buried places their homes; it was said that packs of wild dogs had gone blind in the darkness and found their way by smell and sound alone. And then there was the Lost Man. Some said he was a phantom craving the luxury of flesh once more. Others claimed he was an outcast from the earliest rule of the Marcellans, adhering to some ancient religion long since dead in the city above. Sent down, he had lost track of time, and time had lost him, his body adjusting to eternal night and eschewing the passing of days to give him a vastly extended life. This version of the story claimed that he was happy to live here—and that he delighted when an occasional meal got lost in the Echoes and wandered into his domain.

  “Shit!” Gorham cursed as he dropped the hammer on his foot. He hopped several times, then retrieved the hammer and took some deep breaths.

  Farther down, deep at the ancient root of the city, was the Chasm—bottomless, the place where the Falls and the city’s dead found their end, and—

  Something is rising!

  “Weapons,” he said, standing before the wall where all manner of martial equipment hung. He chose two small crossbows and several racks of bolts, a bag of poisoned dust globes, and some throwing knives. He carried his own short sword and gutting knife, neither of which he’d ever had to use, though he remembered drawing the sword one evening in a tavern three years before, just after Peer had gone and he drank each night to try to forget.

  Something is rising!

  “That’s enough,” he said. The room was darker than it had been, wasn’t it? The atmosphere heavier? He glanced around and saw two doors he hadn’t noticed before, one in each of the room’s far corners, and without opening them he knew they led somewhere deeper, to rooms stacked with more things that Nadielle had stolen from somewhere in the city above. But right then he had no desire to discover those things.

  “Nadielle?” He went back up into her room, looking at the unmade bed and remembering her chuckling against his neck, and from the vat chamber beyond he heard a sound unlike anything he had ever heard in his life. Perhaps babies being fed alive to rockzards would screech like this, or someone having their bones eaten from the inside, or people dipped into boiling oil—the terrible sound echoed and reverberated, gripping on to his mind with tenacious claws, though he would never want such a memory. He dropped the ropes and weapons and clapped his hands over his ears, screaming to try to drown the noise but succeeding only in adding to it.