Echo City

by Tim Lebbon

  Malia threw the tube at Peer. She caught it, surprised, and held it before her, aware that everyone was watching.

  “Open it,” Malia said.

  Peer broke the wax seal and dropped it to the floor. Inside was a single piece of rolled paper, smooth and expensive. And on the paper, three lines. She read them aloud.

  “Dragarians are abroad. The visitor might have arrived. I’m ready to help.” She blinked at the sheet for a beat, scanning the words several more times to make sure she’d read them right. The visitor might have arrived? When she looked up, Malia was staring at her wide-eyed, and Nophel was glancing back and forth between them.

  “A visitor?” he asked.

  “Way ahead of you, Marcellan,” Malia muttered.

  And then, between the hastily drawn curtains, Peer saw a face pressed at the window. A face within a scarlet hood.

  Dane Marcellan had watched many times as Nophel adjusted the Scopes’ attitude and focus, shifted the viewing-mirror feed from one to the next, and aimed their monstrous eyes, but he had been only an observer. Sitting now with the control panel before him, he cursed his inexpert hands.

  He thought he had connected the viewing mirror into the North Scope, but something must have gone wrong. The image on the mirror was blurred, out of focus, and gray shapes exploded across the screen in bilious, almost fleshy blooms. Does it know I’m not Nophel? he wondered, but that was absurd. He’d never ventured up to the roof on his own—those things spooked him, as had much that the old Baker worked on—and there was no way they could know simply through the remote touch of his hands on metal.

  He caught glimpses but needed to see more. Needed to make sure, because if what he thought he’d seen was proven right, then the message he’d sent with Nophel—that risky message, sent with an unstable, perhaps mad man—was already too late.

  “Curse you, Nophel, you’d better carry that message tube well!” He picked up his slash pipe and inhaled once more, closing his eyes to weather the rush. His blood was thick with decades of slash use, and the more he took, the more he needed to feel its effect. It was akin to breathing—a necessity, not a pleasure. He tried to present the acceptable face of addiction, and mostly he succeeded. But it was during these private moments that he hankered after the unbridled drug rush he no longer felt. He inhaled again, sucking deeply, and his lungs were like rocks in his chest.

  When he opened his eyes, the image had clarified a little. Whatever had upset the Scope seemed to have settled, and Dane sat motionless for a while with his hand on the focus ball, afraid to shift in case the Scope sensed him again.

  Dragar’s Canton looked silent and still. The Scope was aimed at the shadowy junction between two massive domes, curving up to the left and right with the dark gulf at the screen’s center. Dane could not imagine these shells ever breaking open—doors slipping aside, Dragarians streaming out. And there lay their deception, in the stillness they had presented over the centuries and the way they had removed themselves from the currents of Echo City. Dragarians were a thing of the past, beyond the memory of anyone alive today. Forgotten, they had become phantoms.

  Dane blinked, breathed in more slash, and then something moved across the screen. He gasped and shifted his hand, edging the Scope to the right. It moved too far and blurred, but he corrected the movement, not thinking too hard about which levers and slides he touched, simply relying on instinct. He’d seen Nophel at work here often enough; all he had to do was …

  There. He stroked the focusing ball, the picture cleared, and a doorway was open in the left dome’s shadow. Several shapes streaked inside, crawling across the surface of the dome like ghourt lizards on a dawn ceiling, and the doorway closed behind them.

  “They’re going home,” Dane whispered, a haze of slash smoke obscuring his view. He turned away from the mirror and closed his eyes, hand clasping tight around the pipe in his right hand. It had once been the hip bone of a tusked swine, carved and smoothed by one of the most talented bone artists in Marcellan Canton, and it was only the quality of its manufacture that prevented it from crumbling in his hand. His heart thundered, sweat ran across his expansive body, and he tried to rein in his darting thoughts. His mind was rich and strong, but sometimes it went too wild. Sometimes, the slash took it that way.

  They’re going home, so they must already have what they wanted. That poor, wretched thing my love the Baker made and sent out—he’s back, and they have him.

  “We’re too late,” he muttered, and if he’d been able he would have gone to the new Baker then and there and cried at her feet. The Dragarians have found the visitor already, and if he’s who I hope—who I fear—they’ll remain silent no more. And we have no idea what they’ve been doing under their domes all this time. The Marcellans had sent spies, of course, hundreds over the centuries. But none of them ever came back.

  Dane stood from the chair and staggered a few steps from the viewing mirror and controls. His legs shook. He felt sick. If the Dragarians believed they had their savior, they would do whatever was in their power the bring about the end of Echo City and usher in their prophesies of Honored Darkness. “We have to prepare for war,” he said, and that word was beyond belief. “I have to see the Council, persuade those blinkered old bastards to go to war.”

  “Not all so blinkered, Dane,” a voice whispered in the shadows. “Though most are bastards.”

  Dane caught his breath, looked around, and the darkness resolved into several swishing red cloaks. The Scarlet Blades came forward—two men and two women—and each of them looked terrified. They must have known already that they were here to kill someone they had served all their lives.

  It was that more than the voice that convinced Dane he was discovered. Jan Ray Marcellan was there, and that was bad enough. But he had never seen a Blade look so afraid. “Jan Ray,” he said, trying to level his voice. I’m not afraid of her. “I never thought to see you in this place.”

  Jan Ray came forward out of the shadows, tall and old and still as graceful as when she’d been a beautiful young woman. There were those who claimed that the Hanharan priestess was pure and unsullied, maintaining her birth-day innocence in deference to Hanharan and to better aid her total devotion to his cause. And there were also those who would whisper, given assurances of anonymity, that on occasion Jan Ray procured young girls from some of the worst rut-houses in Mino Mont and made them fuck her with chickpig hooves.

  “I’m no great advocate of it,” she said, looking around with distaste. “Hanharan guides our vision; we have no need of the Baker’s … monsters. But it gives comfort to my kin. To see the city, they believe, is to own it.”

  “Haven’t we always owned it?” Dane asked, offering a half smile in the vain, evaporating hope that her visit was innocent.

  “We?”

  The Scarlet Blades had spread around Dane, boxing him in against the viewing mirror and controls. They were not yet disrespectfully close, but neither were they too far away. Any one of them could be on him in a blink.

  “I was just about to leave,” he said. “I have grave news for the Council—”

  “I can relay that news, Dane,” she said. She paused before him, and once again he was amazed at her grace. When she moved she seemed to flow, the loose black clothing of a Hanharan priestess a flock of shadows making her their home. And when motionless, as now, there was a stillness to her that was almost unnatural. Her expression never shifted; her mouth barely moved when she spoke. Such economy of movement was the mark of someone in complete control of herself.

  And of the four Blades as well. He should not forget them. Inner Guard, highly trained, unendingly loyal to the Marcellans, these soldiers would nevertheless obey priestesses over politicians at any time of the day or night. That was the fruit of their indoctrination.

  “It’s news I should take myself,” he said.

  Jan Ray smiled. He rarely saw that. It was horrible. “Where is your deformed bastard today?”

  How dare sh
e? Insolent bitch!

  “I’m not certain where Nophel is. I’ll be reprimanding him when I find him; he should have been here, especially today, when—”

  “I suspect he’s been reprimanded already.” Another of her habits—interrupting. It gave her control over any conversation.

  “The Dragarians have emerged,” he said. Truth is best right now, just … be sparing with it. “I’m not sure why, or what they’ve come for, but we should send—”

  “Should we?”

  “Send the Scarlet Blades north immediately. To protect us.”

  “Protect us from those unbelievers? They’ve hidden themselves away from Hanharan’s smile for five hundred years, Dane. What could we possibly have to fear from them?”

  Dane glanced at the Blades, each of them with one hand on their sword. Ready to draw; ready to move. He breathed deeply, wondering at his chances. I’m fat and they think I’m slow. They know me as a slash user. That’s all I have.

  “The ones I saw looked like warriors,” he said. “Some flew, others crawled. They’ve been chopping in there for centuries. They were all heavily armed.” One Blade fidgeted slightly, another glanced at her companions. That was exactly what he wanted. To unnerve them. He closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them again he knew that his life was changing, here and now. This was when he paid for his beliefs, his passion, and his shunning of the god that had ruled his family and directed their actions for generations.

  Doubt came, and he let it flow away once again. It was good to see it go. Its departure made him strong.

  “You’re a monster,” Jan Ray said, voice filled with bitterness and distaste. “A traitorous, stinking, fat, disgusting monster. I’ve sensed your unbelief for years, Dane, but I never wanted to admit it, even to myself. Never wished to acknowledge that my second cousin could shun the god Hanharan, who made him.”

  “My parents made me,” he whispered.

  “And who made them?”

  “Who?” Dane said, drawing strength into his voice. “Hanharan? Don’t make me laugh.” The Blades gasped, and he saw more ways to unsettle them.

  He brushed his hand against his jacket pocket, uttered a subtle, deep hum, and something in there began to move.

  “You’ll be arrested. I sent men after your bastard, and I told them to bring back his ugly head for the wall. They’ll follow until he reaches his destination and will kill whoever they find. So who is it, Dane? Watchers? There are many left, we know that for sure.”

  Dane scoffed. “Watchers? They’re harmless ass-gazers. Why should I mix with the likes of them?”

  “Because they’re enemies of Hanharan. And when someone like you, Dane Marcellan, betrays his blood, any enemy will do. You can’t do things on your own, because you’re weak, and Hanharan has shunned your treacherous flesh. You need friends. You need accomplices.”

  “Jan Ray, there’s no truth to any of this,” he said, feeling the movement in his pocket, glancing at the Blades, and smiling inwardly when they averted their eyes. “Nophel is missing and will be punished.”

  “You think I don’t know you’ve been feeding him that juice from the dead Baker witch?” she whispered.

  Dane shook his head and slipped his hand into his pocket. The contents were wet and warm, and he had maybe a dozen heartbeats before they would kill him. He closed his eyes and summoned his hate and rage, and he was pleased to find it close.

  “You’ll suffer, Dane,” Jan Ray said, “and it will all be in the dark. Your name will be wiped from the family, and no one will ever—”

  “You can suck Hanharan’s cock while your bitches pig-fuck you,” he said, closing his hand around the eggs, “and I’ll happily hold my cock and watch.”

  The priestess opened her eyes in surprise, but it was the Blades’ reactions he was watching. They stepped back, averting their eyes from such blasphemy and muttering prayers, and Dane pulled his hand from his pocket. Whatever the outcome of this moment, his time as a Marcellan was over.

  He flung the scarepion eggs, flicking his wrist in four motions, letting one egg slip away each time. The first two found their targets, breaking across a Blade’s chest and throat and spewing their screeching contents. The third bounced away and broke on the floor at a female Blade’s feet, and the fourth missed altogether, disappearing into the darkness.

  Jan Ray stumbled back from Dane, leaning against the viewing-mirror controls. The angle on the screen flickered and tilted crazily, and, high above, one of the Scopes would be screaming in pain.

  The scarepion young—dozens to an egg—sought blood with their staggering sense of smell. They used their birthing horns to penetrate skin and inject venom, then clawed their way inside. In heartbeats the first two Blades were on their knees, screaming as they scratched and tore at their own flesh. The third Blade made the fatal error of leaning forward to look at the ruptured egg rather than stepping back. Scarepions could jump.

  The fourth Blade came at him. His sword was drawn—a deadly weapon that had been handed down through his generations, scored with a record of kills, each scoring filled with dried oxomanlia extract that would turn toxic on contact with blood—and the man’s eyes were wide with fear and disbelief that he was going against a Marcellan.

  Dane had to turn that disbelief quickly to his advantage. If the fight began, the Blade’s training would take over, and Dane would be cut down.

  “How dare you!” he thundered. The Scarlet Blade faltered and blinked in confusion, his blade dipping toward the floor.

  Dane stepped lithely into the soldier’s killing field—his weight and build, as ever, belying his grace—and slid his knife between the man’s ribs. The soldier’s mouth fell open and Dane twisted, pulling left and right, wanting to kill quickly. The soldier groaned, and, as he fell away, warmth gushed across Dane’s hand.

  Dane kept hold of the knife and turned, looking for Jan Ray. She was going for the door. If she got away, the Scope tower would be crawling with Blades in moments, and Dane’s only escape would be up and off the tower—an ignominious end, but at least one that would be in his control. He thought of Nophel, the poor bastard he had misled for so long, and hoped that his death would be quick and clean. And he thought of the old dead Baker—his friend, his lover, and the mother of his only child, whom Dane had taken under his wing and protected, bitter though the child had remained against the mother who had abandoned him to the workhouse.

  “I’m so sorry, Nophel,” he said, and he felt wretched now that they would never know each other as father and son. He should have told him the truth, but doing so would have doomed them both.

  He could not take a blade to a Marcellan, though, not even this Hanharan priestess who had tried to kill him. He could not punish her for her foolish beliefs.

  Jan Ray screamed. Dane looked toward the shadowed corner where she had fled, expecting to see the opened door but instead seeing nothing. And when her scream came again, he knew that fate had steered her to the fourth scarepion egg. And though he had spent his life consciously not believing in such things as gods, he closed his eyes and gave thanks to something, anything, for his fortune.

  Dane Marcellan closed the door to the viewing room and descended the staircase. He had sprayed the room with barch oil first, hoping that it would kill most of the scarepion young before anyone else entered. That was the best he could do. He felt wretched at the deaths and sick to his heart at the betrayal.

  But, in truth, the betrayal had been a part of him for decades. The Baker, his love, had opened his eyes to the folly of Hanharan beliefs. And when she’d had her own eyes closed at the hands of the Dragarians, he had vowed to see his way forward in the way she would have desired—as a disciple of science and truth. That vow had only now come to action, and it was Jan Ray’s fanaticism that had led to those deaths. If only she could have let him walk away.

  Now it was Nadielle, his old love’s chopped replacement, whom he had to find. The Hanharan priestess said she had sent Scarlet Blades a
fter Nophel. If what the old woman claimed was true, Dane doubted Nophel had a chance of reaching Nadielle at all. But his options were suddenly more limited than he had ever planned for. And Nophel was the only family he had left.

  Traitor though he was, for a while he would still be a Marcellan in a city that feared his name. He would use that fear for as long as he could.

  Beyond that, fate would decide.

  “You led them here!” the woman said, and Nophel shook his head.

  They must have followed me all the way from Hanharan Heights, all day, keeping out of view and watching and waiting until …

  “Malia, he’s terrified!” the other woman, Peer, said.

  Nophel could not look at either of them. He was staring at the window where the face had been, and he knew what would come next.

  “Stop bickering if you want to live,” he said. “They’ve come to kill us all.”

  Malia took control. Nophel had seen women like her in the Blades—harsh and cruel but with a discipline that meant they could focus under pressure and fight when the time came. And as she whispered orders to Peer, he started to work at his bonds.

  “Back there, in the bedroom, under the bed. Weapons. Bring them all, and give one to Brunley.”

  “I’m not mixed up in—” the old man began, but Malia cut him off with a short, harsh laugh.

  “You’ve been seen with us, old man. Tough shit.”

  Peer pushed past Nophel, glancing at him as she went by. Soon he heard the clink of metal as she rummaged under a bed in the barge’s next room.

  “How many are there?” Malia asked, and Nophel realized she was asking him.

  “I don’t know.”

  “How many?”

  “Usually they work in fours,” he said, and she glanced back at him. Was that grudging belief he saw in her? Right now it didn’t matter. “They must have followed me, and whoever sent them wouldn’t have risked them being seen. So, four. Any more and I’d have seen them for sure.”