by Tim Lebbon
Where the Garthans rose—quietly and secretively in places, yet also interacting with the citizens in violent, startled ways that they never had before—word quickly spread of cannibalistic invasion from below. Many residents panicked and fled their homes, carrying their children and weapons and nothing else, and soon the streets were awash with people. The population spread out from those areas touched by the Garthans like ripples fleeing a stone’s impact.
Scarlet Blades tried to contain the panic, and sometimes they succeeded. But here and there fights broke out and blood was spilled, not always the blood of civilians.
The Marcellan Council debated the news they were hearing from across the city. Hanharan priests advised the government, and their advice concerning the Echoes was always the same—Hanharan lives down there, and he exhales only goodness. They blamed the Garthans, and official word went out that an invasion was under way. Across the city, Garthan and Scarlet Blade blood mingled in short, brutal combats.
In the many places where news was vague and panic had not yet reached, and where people sat quietly eating breakfast or watching the sunrise, perhaps holding hands with their loved ones or smiling softly as their children readied for school, they heard a quiet, insistent noise from below: thud … thud … thud.
They frowned and wondered what it could be.
Gorham sat and watched the girl come to life before him. There is my daughter, he thought, and yet she could never be. She was chopped, as much a monster as the Pserans or the Scopes, and she would not know him as Father.
He had carried her from the womb-vat room into Nadielle’s bedroom. Naked, slick from the fluids that had nurtured her to such a size so quickly, she had already been looking around with those wide, curious eyes. Yet she had nestled into him, arms around his neck and head pressed against his chest. He’d felt her heartbeat, and that had given him pause. She really is alive.
Now he watched and waited, and it was amazing. He would never understand exactly what Nadielle had done here and certainly not how. But as the girl’s awareness grew and her knowledge seemed to expand in her head like a balloon, so he believed he was coming more to terms with what she was.
The urgency was still there, crushing him like a giant hand bearing down on both shoulders. But Nadielle had left the girl here to prepare for Rufus’s return. In a way Gorham felt useless, but he was also thankful that he could watch as the Baker’s processes continued outside the vat.
She’s the new Baker, he thought. She had the body of a girl maybe ten or eleven years old, but her eyes were already those of an adult. There was still confusion there and traces of fear, but at times Gorham also saw a striking wisdom and a depth of experience that would have been impossible in anyone else her age.
And yet her true age was measured only in hours.
He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, trying to settle the feeling that he should never have been here. He was a pragmatist—that had driven him since his early years, and it continued to guide him through his adult life as a Watcher. Yet what he watched here could not be real. Nadielle scoffed at the word magic, and Gorham had always allied it with the beliefs of Hanharans and the other, smaller religious sects throughout Echo City. Yet what more suitable word was there? If an act such as the Baker’s chopping used talents, forces, and knowledge far beyond the understanding of anyone else in the city, wasn’t that magic? It consisted of processes rather than spells or hexes, but he suspected they were processes that no one else but the Baker could perform, on the very edge of any science it was possible to understand. Nadielle had told him that much was passed down from chopped Baker to chopped Baker—he could see the stark evidence of that in the burgeoning knowledge before him now—but she had never explained how she did what she did. The Bakers had been practicing like this through the centuries, and that lent power to the concept of their own particular magic.
The girl was sitting on the Baker’s bed, a gown tied tight around her waist, with Nadielle’s books spread around her. There were sheafs of paper piled everywhere, notebooks, and those ancient books the Baker had brought from her secret rooms. The girl read as she ate—she had been eating ever since the birth—and she never once glanced at Gorham. He might as well not have been there, but he continued to bring her food and drink, and he knew that she was more than aware of his presence. Her hair was long and tangled. Her skin was pink as a newborn baby’s. Yet it was her eyes—his eyes—that made his breath catch each time he saw them.
She ran her hands across one of the oldest books, turned a page, and touched the ancient words. She read and gasped. She can read, Gorham thought. She’s been in this world for mere hours and she can read, comprehend, understand. Crumbs fell from her mouth as she chewed, and she brushed them from the books with a gentle reverence. She understands the value of knowledge, and that’s something some people don’t realize in a lifetime. The girl was more amazing with every moment, and Gorham found himself observing from a greater distance. The first time she spoke, he was so startled that he thought he’d been woken from a dream.
“There should be another book,” she said.
Gorham stood from his chair and backed away. He nudged against the wall, knocking something from a shelf. It smashed on the floor, but neither man nor girl averted their gaze.
“No,” he croaked.
“She would have left it with you to hand to me.”
“No,” he said, firmer this time. “Not with me. She left nothing with me.” That bitterness burned, and the girl’s knowing smile stunned him.
She glanced around at the scattered books again, as if looking for one she had not yet seen.
“How much do you know?” he asked softly.
“Enough,” she said. She rubbed her temple, then lowered her hand, the smile now gone. “Enough to know that something is missing.”
Gorham shook his head, going over Nadielle’s final words in his mind. He’d been angry, and perhaps sad, but he was certain he remembered everything that had been said. If she’d left something for the new Baker and told him about it, he would have remembered.
The girl keened and tipped to the side, resting her head against the open page of a huge old book. Gorham dashed across the room, and his every step closer made her more real.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, reaching out but not quite touching. Though there were tears, her eyes were still older than they should have been. She gasped, sobbed, then pushed herself upright again. She seemed to be in pain, but when she reached out and took his hand, the touch was gentle, the hold firm.
“She rushed,” the girl said. “But I’ll be fine to do what needs doing.” She had fine blond hair, and Gorham noticed a streak of white on one side. He was certain it had not been there before—he’d have noticed it when he carried her in here, surely? But his thoughts then had been in a mess, his senses distracted. She took some shortcuts. He wondered where else this new Baker lacked her creator’s qualities.
“I think I know where the book is,” the girl said. She pulled against Gorham’s hand to help herself up, then closed books to clear a space around her. “Sit. I need to talk to you.”
“Why?”
“Because the old Baker left you here with me for a reason. You’re the book—her diary of the final days. You need to tell me everything you know and all the reasons why she chopped me while she was …” She smiled that knowing smile again. “I’m sure she cared for you.”
“I’m not so sure,” he said, but somehow the girl’s words gave him comfort.
“The urgency is hot in me,” she said. “I’ve no time to learn or research. You have to tell me what’s happened, and try not to leave anything out.”
“You’re so new,” he said. The deeper he thought about it, the more terrifying it became. “How can you talk? How do you know all those things?”
“No Baker is new,” she said. “We’re all continuations. I can tell you the color of the Baker’s eyes from a thousand years ago. I can tell you what food th
e Baker from three thousand years ago favored.”
“Then if you know everything, the name Vex will have meaning.”
The girl paled, pressed her hand to her forehead, and grasped Gorham’s hand to steady herself.
“The Vex is ancient history,” she whispered.
“And all of Echo City’s history is here.”
“Then tell me. Quickly!”
“First tell me your name.”
“I have none. Will you give me one?”
“Let me think.”
“Think while you’re talking,” she said, and for the first time he heard a trace of Nadielle in the girl’s voice, saw a glint of the old Baker’s cool, detached humor in her eye.
So he talked, and some time into his story he named the girl.
“It’s been too long,” Peer said, hand pressed against her aching hip. Ever since the Unseen had left with Nophel, she’d been unable to sit still. She’d paced the two hidden rooms of the ruin where they hid, wearing a path back and forth across the gritty floor, and several times Malia had told her to fucking sit down. But Peer could not be still when everything else was in motion. So much depended on what happened here, and the responsibility she felt for Rufus Kyuss was almost crippling.
“There are six domes,” Malia said, sighing because she’d said that a dozen times already.
“Still. It’s been too long.” Peer knelt close to one of the windows they were avoiding and looked at the incredible city outside. They’d seen very little activity since hiding themselves away. There were flitters of movement and now and then mysterious sounds that they could not identify—distant growls, an insistent clanging that had continued for hours, a long, low wail that rose and fell in random increments, and that thumping that seemed to rise from the ground. But there was no indication that they had been seen and no sign of the others.
Peer leaned back against the wall and stared across at Malia. The Watcher woman was sitting with her eyes closed, though Peer knew she was not asleep. She was meditating, perhaps, or simply thinking about what had happened and what was to come. The woman was Gorham’s friend, and if put in this situation a few days before, Peer would have been quizzing her nonstop about her old lover. But that seemed so inconsequential now, compared to what was happening. Gorham had given Peer to the Marcellans for the good of the Watchers, and she had to accept what had failed between them for the good of the whole city.
Far too long, she thought.
“We should go,” Peer said. “Make our own way in, look elsewhere. We can cover more ground than—”
“Than invisible people?” Malia asked without opening her eyes.
A distant wailing sound began—but this was different. The one they’d heard before had sounded like the cries of a wounded animal, but this was more regular. A continuous rise and fall.
Malia opened her eyes. “That’s an alarm.”
“They’ve been caught.”
“Or they have him.” Malia stood and approached the window beside Peer, sword in her hand. She was edgy, more animated than Peer had seen her in a while. Maybe she’d simply been preparing for this.
“We need to be ready to move as soon as they’re here,” Malia said. “We’ll go on ahead, make sure the route out’s clear.”
“What about Rufus?”
“They’ll be protecting him.” She nodded at Peer, then clasped her arm. “He’s more important to the city than to you, Peer.”
“I know that,” she said, but the truth hurt.
They watched the landscape outside, unable to see far because of the honeycomb structures filling the dome. And when the Unseen returned, it was not from the direction they expected.
“We need to move quickly,” a voice said. Peer spun around and raised her short sword, and Alexia stood behind them.
“You have him?” Malia asked.
Alexia leaned against the wall and took several deep breaths, fighting off a faint. “Yes. I came on ahead.”
“Is he …?” Peer began.
“He’s fine. Unconscious. I had to knock him out. I’m not sure he really wants to come.”
“What?”
“Doesn’t matter now,” Malia said. “So, you’re the soldier. What’s the best way to go from here?”
Alexia grinned. “Well, when I was a Blade, in situations such as this we’d usually resort to running like fuck.” The others entered behind her through a gap left by a fallen wall: Nophel, the two other Unseen … and, slung between them, Rufus.
“Back the way we came,” Alexia said. “But, to stay together, we all need to remain seen, unless you two—”
“You’ll have more of a chance on your own,” Peer said. “Fade out again, and go as fast as you can. Malia and I will remember the way on our own. And if we trail behind you …”
“Yes,” Malia said. “It’ll be us they catch first, and that will slow them down.”
“A drop of blood is all it takes,” Nophel said.
“No,” Peer said, and Malia also shook her head. It was no longer simply fear of the condition that made them refuse. It was the realization that they could provide a distraction.
“Fine,” Alexia said without argument, and the Unseen began to fade. She placed her hands on either side of the unconscious Rufus’s face and concentrated, and he, too, began to fade.
“What?” Malia gasped, surprised, and before Nophel flittered from visibility, he pointed at his bleeding arm.
They slipped from the building. Peer had never felt so naked and exposed. The dome sloped away above them, and without staring up it could have been just another expanse of gray sky. A thousand windows stared down at them, dark openings in the faces of incredible structures, and behind any one there could have been a Dragarian waiting for this moment. Perhaps they’ve been playing us all along, Peer thought, and it was an unsettling idea because …
Because she’d been thinking the same about Rufus. He’d killed the Border Spite and the Watcher easily enough, and he’d fled the Baker’s laboratory as soon as he heard the truth—almost as if he’d known the truth all along, and this was all just a ploy to get here.
But perhaps her imagination was running away with her. If there was any truth in that, he’d have forced them to let him stay. He might talk like a child, but she had a feeling he had a much wider understanding of things than any of them gave him credit for.
They approached the dome’s edge, dropped into the dried canal, and headed back down into the tunnels from which they’d emerged an unknown time ago. Sunlight still streamed through the hidden windows in the dome’s roof, but it had taken on a darker, deeper hue, and she suspected that dusk was approaching outside. She wondered how much things would have changed when dawn next touched the city.
It was as they struck alight their oil torches that Peer first heard the sounds of pursuit.
She and Malia froze and stared at each other, heads tilted. The sound came again—a low, secretive grinding, like something dragging itself over the ground.
“You go on,” Malia said, and before Peer could protest, the Watcher woman was climbing back toward daylight.
Peer moved deeper into the tunnels, alone and terrified, and looked for a place to wait. She could not simply leave Malia behind and flee, much as every part of her wanted to. And neither could she move on; even now she was unsure of whether she was going in the right direction. So she hunkered down behind the remains of a tumbled wall, wondered what the building had been, and soon heard footsteps pounding toward her from the direction of the dome. She thought of extinguishing the torch but decided to keep it alight. If the person running at her was not Malia, she’d need to see what she was fighting.
“We can’t stay here,” Malia said, rushing past. “Come on.”
Peer ran after her, handing Malia the torch and trusting the Watcher’s instinct. Malia moved this way and that without any apparent hesitation, and Peer only hoped she remembered the way correctly.
“Lots of them,” Malia said.
“We could wait and fight, but we wouldn’t hold them up for long. Useless.”
“So what?” Peer panted.
“We find somewhere narrow and try to hold them back.”
“Just you and me?”
“Yeah. Narrow enough for one or two, and we’ll do what we can.”
We’ll do what we can. That meant die. Peer felt curiously detached from the possibility, as if she’d already died once before and knew it was not so bad. Yet her will to live was strong—to see Rufus and help him as much as she could. To see Gorham again. He’d been afraid when she left him with the Baker, and the manner of their parting …
I could have said goodbye, she thought. I could have given him some inkling of forgiveness, at least. But that would have been a betrayal of herself. She had not forgiven him, could not. But that didn’t mean they could not still be friends, of a sort.
And Penler. She’d made herself a promise to see him one more time. Failing in that would feel like letting him, not herself, down.
Behind them in the tunnels, echoes drifted in: growls and scrapes, the flapping of wings, the slithering of things across the ground. They merged with the sounds of their own footfalls. The sounds were growing louder, even though Peer and Malia were running as fast as they could. Whether they reached a suitable place of ambush or not, the choice to run or fight would soon be made for them.
Peer drew her sword, and it felt pathetic in her hand. Not long now. Not long until she discovered the truth about death and what lay beyond. Would she be taken down to Hanharan, in whom she did not believe, and welcomed into his shadowed embrace? Or would her senses blink out one by one until there was nothing to comprehend and no comprehension at all?
A Watcher all her life, right then Peer was no longer sure what she believed.
An arrow flicked past her ear and struck Malia in the neck. She grunted and fell, and Peer tripped over her flailing limbs. And then redness rose around them, and the sound of fighting and dying filled that subterranean place.