Echo City

by Tim Lebbon

  There was movement behind Nophel and he turned, adjusting his position so that he held Rufus in front of him, backing against the Bellower pod, resting against it so that he could see the others. Peer was standing with her mouth open in surprise, as if the world had been pulled out from beneath her. The two Unseen men seemed to be glancing back and forth from Alexia to Nophel, obviously waiting to take their lead from her. And Alexia seemed to shimmer, her invisibility shifting unconsciously as her hand gripped her sword.

  “I need to see her,” Nophel said. “Need to talk with her.”

  “But she can’t be your mother,” Peer said. “She’s barely twenty, and you’re—”

  “Age doesn’t matter to them,” he said. “They might look different or change bodies, but it’s still the same mind. Still the same traitorous … bloody … mind. Right, Rufus?”

  “We’re going to her anyway,” Peer said softly, trying to mediate. She held her hands away from her body, projecting calm. Alexia looked ready to slice Nophel’s head off. Nophel almost smiled at the shock his actions had inspired in all of them.

  Apart from Rufus. He seemed quite calm. Nophel could even feel his heartbeat—gentle, soft.

  “She always has her reasons,” Rufus said. “I don’t know what she did to you, but I can guess. And she did the same to me.”

  “But you’re not her child,” Nophel said angrily. He pulled back on the knife and was rewarded with a satisfying stiffening of Rufus’s body. The tall man, so composed, suddenly seemed afraid.

  “Don’t,” he said. “Hurt me and you’ll doom everyone.”

  “You think I care?” Nophel shouted, but his vision was blurring.

  “I might not be her child,” Rufus said, “but she treated me as a son for a while. I’m not sure how long. It’s … confused. But I was with her—she taught me, and walked the city with me, fed and clothed me. And then I learned that it was all part of the experiment.”

  “I was her true son,” Nophel said. “Hers, and Dane Marcellan’s.” Through his blurred vision he saw the added amazement on Peer’s face, and even Alexia stood straighter, hand falling away from her sword.

  “You’re a Marcellan?” the Unseen gasped.

  “No!” Nophel shouted.

  “But did you find love?” Rufus asked. He eased back a little, lessening the pressure of the knife against his throat. “I did. Out there, past the desert. She took me in and loved me as her own son.”

  “Love,” Nophel said, and he thought of Dane’s final touch on his ugly face, and the way the Marcellan had taken him from the workhouse, given him a home, protected him. He’d been Nophel’s point of contact among the Marcellans—a fat, slash-using monster who had treated the Scope watcher with disdain and disgust, but how must it have been for him? To know that he had employed the Baker’s bastard son—his own son—in Hanharan Heights, and to know the terrible tortures that awaited them both if anyone there ever found out? Perhaps the only way to protect him had been to treat him like that. But in the end, when everything was falling apart …

  “I can see you’re not completely unloved,” Rufus said. “I’m not sure anyone ever is.”

  Nophel lowered the knife, but Rufus stayed close, a harsh red line across his throat.

  “I wanted to kill her,” Nophel whispered.

  “I understand,” Rufus said, equally quiet. “But wouldn’t you rather just ask her why?” He stepped back from Nophel, and Alexia dashed past him, her sword drawn, hunched down, ready in case Nophel went for her with his knife.

  But he dropped the weapon and pressed his hands to his horrible, disfigured face, the fluid from several open sores mixing with his tears. Don’t be too harsh on the Baker, Dane—his father—had said. She’s not like us.

  “Us,” he whispered, a single word that included him.

  Nophel sensed a flutter of movement in the Bellower chamber, a shout, and then a dying scream. Looking up, he saw Dragarians streaming in, the short Unseen already dead on the ground.

  “Wait!” Rufus said, but these were creatures ready for war. Some were wounded and bleeding, others wore hastily tied robes from Scarlet Blades they had killed, and one bore the slashed, blood-soaked remnants of Dane Marcellan’s fine robe.

  Alexia and the other Unseen went for the Dragarians. Peer seemed confused, looking back and forth between the attackers and Rufus. And Rufus stepped forward, hands held up as if to divert the assault.

  They advanced quickly, two of them parrying the tall Unseen’s sword and grasping his arms while a third drove a bladed hand through his face. He shook but made no sound as he died. They dropped him and moved on.

  “No!” Rufus shouted, louder this time, and the sudden attack paused. The chamber seemed to echo with violence. “They haven’t harmed me.”

  “That’s my father’s robe,” Nophel said. The Dragarian wearing it was a woman, badly chopped so that her skin was hardened into chitinous armor, and she hissed at him. He pushed himself away from the Bellower pod, even then thinking, Just what am I going to do? But he had no chance to do anything. The chunk of a crossbow, a punch in his chest, and he fell, the rising chaos in the chamber suddenly very far away and no longer a part of him.

  He saw his father’s face as he had seen it only once—smiling for his son. And then darkness.

  * * *

  Everything was happening so quickly that, to Peer, it felt like a dream.

  She brought up both hands as the Dragarian came at her. Its blades were raised, its eyes lidded for protection, its head lowered, and it moved sleek as a shadow and fast as starlight. Penler, was her last thought, and then she felt the cool kiss of metal against her throat.

  “I said stop!” a voice thundered. She knew something in that voice, but it had changed, become whole, and now it sounded like the voice of …

  I don’t believe in gods, Peer thought as a hand rested softly on her shoulder. The Dragarians backed away, heads lowered slightly. The hand squeezed.

  Peer turned and looked past Rufus. Alexia had approached Nophel hesitantly, sword still in one hand. Her edges blurred, but she remained seen as she knelt by the fallen man. He was breathing hard, one hand cupped around the bolt projecting from his chest but not quite touching it.

  The chamber took a breath between deaths, and Peer wondered who would be next.

  “Peer,” Rufus said softly, and she turned to the tall man. “You’ve been my only friend.”

  “I wanted to help you,” she said.

  “And you did.” His eyes flicked around the chamber, taking in the bodies of the two dead Unseen and the several Dragarians backed against the chamber wall. They all looked up but kept their heads bowed. Their god has spoken, Peer thought, and perhaps such power and belief was what it was about. Who needed real gods, if false ones could exert such control?

  “I will return with you,” he said to the Dragarians, “and no one will try to prevent that.”

  I’m losing him, Peer thought. He’s going. She reached for his arm and he held her hand, squeezing gently.

  “Doom hangs over the city,” Rufus continued. “As Dragar I return, and my blood is as it was five hundred years ago—rich with the way to Honored Darkness.” The few Dragarians muttered, shuffling their feet, glancing at one another. “But we will leave in peace. The city’s end-days are here, with no need for us to hasten them. Our domes will close again, our warriors will be recalled, and there will be no more violence. This is no longer our home, and we have no more business here.”

  Alexia was now standing close to Nophel, glancing around uncertainly. When she caught Peer’s eye, Peer nodded down at the short sword she held. The Unseen dropped the blade.

  “Do you really believe …?” Peer asked, but Rufus leaned in close and took her in a gentle hug.

  “To them, I’m their god,” he whispered, “and they’ll use whatever is in my blood—whatever was in Dragar’s blood—to help them cross the Bonelands. Honored Darkness awaits to the north. I find only honor in their d
esire that I lead them there.”

  “But Echo City needs you, Rufus!”

  “This is not my home,” he said, “and Rufus is not my name.”

  “Dragar is?”

  He only blinked, and the Dragarians fidgeted.

  “I don’t believe in gods,” Peer said. “We need your blood. The Baker needs it, and you can’t just turn around and leave with them.” She nodded at the chopped warriors, their blades folded and stained with drying blood.

  “You’d fight them?” Rufus asked.

  “Yes!” Alexia said, and she knelt to pick up her dropped sword.

  “No,” Rufus said. “No.” He walked to Alexia and took the sword from her hand, and she did nothing to prevent him. He glanced down at Nophel, blood from the fallen man’s wound spreading on the chamber floor. Then he sliced the sword across his own palm.

  The Dragarians gasped, but Rufus stilled them with a glance. He told Alexia to empty her water canteen, then squeezed his wound above the container’s neck, wincing, his skin turning pale as blood dripped. For a while it was the only sound in the huge chamber, and then Rufus swayed, and Peer dashed to his side to hold him steady. The Dragarians mumbled at her contact with him.

  “This might not be enough,” Alexia said, but Peer cut her off with a glare.

  “Thank you,” Peer said. Rufus nodded at her and let her bind the wound. “But you expected this?” she asked. “Ever since you arrived here?”

  “I had …” Rufus said, frowning. “Feelings. And I had to follow them.”

  “And they led you here?” Alexia asked. But Rufus ignored her, looking only at Peer.

  “They called me Man from Sand,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “The people across the desert. Their world is called the Heartlands, and their Heart and Mind sees through me. It knows Echo City now. I hope it will welcome you.”

  “Tell me more!” Peer said.

  “It’s not for me to tell you,” he said. “And I have to go.”

  “Please!” Peer said. She was pleading now, struggling to grasp the truth she had been seeking her whole adult life. “It’s everything I’ve ever believed in!”

  “Then have faith,” Rufus said. He turned and walked to where the Dragarians stood in respectful, awed silence. They parted to ensure their bloodied weapons did not touch him, then followed him from that place without a backward glance.

  The Bellower chamber fell almost silent; only Nophel’s heavy breathing whispered against the walls.

  “Well, that was intense,” Alexia said. She stared at her two fallen friends, then knelt again beside the motionless Nophel, examining the injury.

  “Is he …?” Peer asked, still not looking away from where Rufus had vanished.

  “It’s not good,” Alexia said. “Missed the heart, but he’s losing blood.”

  Peer turned and looked at the water canteen Alexia had placed carefully on the ground. That’s the blood we can’t afford to lose, she thought. “We have to get to the Baker,” she said. “As quickly as we can. We stop for nothing.” She glanced up at the Bellower. “I hope I can remember what he did to make this thing work.”

  “I’m not dead yet,” Nophel whispered. “Help me … into the pod.”

  “So she’s really your mother,” Peer said.

  “My mother.”

  “Talk about mixed heritage,” Alexia said.

  And as she and Alexia lifted Nophel into the Bellower pod, Rufus’s parting comment imprinted itself on Peer’s mind forever.

  Then have faith.

  He was pacing the vat hall, feeling helpless, silently exhorting Rose to acknowledge him again instead of just sitting on the vat, watching and stirring and watering, when she gasped and fell. She bounced from the shell of the vat, knocked her head against one of the large wooden uprights, and splashed in the warm pool around its base. The sound of her head making contact with the ground was sickening, and even as he ran across to her—fifteen steps, certainly no more—he was certain that she was dead.

  He felt an impact through his feet, so powerful that he stumbled a little before regaining his balance. Accompanying it for the first time, a distant rumble … and a roar.

  Oh, crap, oh, crap—and he knew how great events often turned on the pivot of a minor, pointless catastrophe. Kneeling beside her, he dreaded what he would see. There was no blood, at least not at first glance. No dents in her head. Her left eye flickered slightly, splashing droplets of water from her eyelashes.

  “Rose,” he said, reaching out but not quite touching.

  Another impact, and dust came down from the ceiling. The vat rumbled and whispered, and he expected its sides to flex and burst at any moment. What’s she making this time? He had seen the birth of Neph, and then those three fighting things, and finally Rose, so now what could Rose be making to better that? What monstrous creature would she send after the others to fight whatever was rising? It was like sending a bird after a spider after a fly …

  “No!” she gasped. Gorham lifted her head from the water, and her eyes fluttered open. One was still pink and bloodshot, but they were both alert and conscious. She fixed her gaze on Gorham for a beat, then tried to sit up. He helped. She thanked him. Then she slowly lowered her eyes.

  “She’s dead,” she said. “We don’t have very long.”

  “Nadielle?”

  Rose stood and held on to the wooden support. She wiped water from her face and looked at a smear of blood across the back of her hand. Her nose was bleeding.

  “Are you sure?” Gorham asked.

  “She tried to communicate with the Vex while her creations attacked it. Tried to reason with it. But it killed her. The chopped are still fighting it, but …” She shrugged. “Help me back up. I have to make certain the vat—”

  “Don’t you care?” It killed her, he thought. She’s gone—all that life, those gorgeous eyes glazed …

  “She made me because she knew it would happen,” the girl said, confused.

  “I care!” Gorham said.

  Rose seemed uncertain, as if waiting for him to say more. When he remained silent, unable to speak, she turned away and looked back up at the vat.

  Gorham walked away. I ran over here to help her, he thought. And she never needed my help.

  “They’d better bring him soon,” Rose said. As if to illustrate her point, there was another impact that shook the ground and made him stagger against one of the ruined vats. His hand slid into a sickly, thick mess, and he wiped it on his trousers without looking.

  “If they do, they do,” he said. And if Peer is still with them, please, let her talk to me. Let her accept me.

  The distance roared, and he wondered what state Echo City was in.

  * * *

  The Bellowers bellowed, and Peer and Alexia traveled south in a pod with the injured Nophel between them. Alexia had administered brief first aid but thought it too risky to try removing the crossbow bolt. At least it doesn’t seem to be poisoned, she’d said, and Peer’s thoughts had gone back to Malia. It would be difficult telling Gorham about her death, but at least it had been a brave one.

  And was I brave? she wondered. Whatever happened in the immediate future, she would never forget the feeling of her sword ending that tortured woman’s life.

  The journey passed quickly. At last they lifted Nophel between them and headed toward daylight, and he groaned as he walked, trying to help but losing a lot of blood. As they emerged into the dawn from the final Bellower basement—Peer welcoming the sunlight, reveling in the heat on her face, and yet convinced that something terrible was stalking them—the ground was shaken by an immense tremor. Peer staggered against a wall with Nophel, and Alexia went to her knees on the narrow path. Windows smashed, people screamed. The Unseen woman grasped the water canteen.

  As the noise of the impact faded, a silence hung over the built-up area—a pause that invited more chaos. But none arrived.

  “What was that?” Alexia asked.

  “
It’s getting close,” Peer said. “We have to hurry, Alexia. Fast as we can. We’ve got to get across into Crescent and down to the Baker’s labs, and that’s two miles away. And …” She looked at Nophel, with his head bowed. We should leave him, she thought. But he had helped them so much—the Unseen most of all—and before she could say more, Alexia had grasped his arm across her shoulders.

  “Then we should go.”

  Smoke rose in the distance, and voices rose in panic again. This was not the usual morning chaos. This was the sound of a rout.

  “What’s happening?” Nophel asked.

  “Come on.” Peer grabbed his other arm and they walked along the narrow alley. The smoke she’d seen was thick and rich; the stink of cooking meat hung in the air. And as they rounded the corner and Peer looked down the sloping street, the chaos grew apparent.

  The streets were thronged with people, carts, and tusked swine loaded with hastily tied packings, all of them flowing south. Arguments broke out here and there, fistfights flaring and dying out. Farther up the gentle hillside toward the looming Marcellan Canton wall, a building burned. Its windows gushed fire and the roof wore a head of flames, and from this distance it was difficult to tell whether the fire was being tended. One side wall had already collapsed, and burning brands were drifting westward on the breeze. Already there were smoke plumes heading skyward from a dozen secondary fires.

  Someone called for their son. A woman screamed. An old man begged for help, somewhere out of sight. Children cried, men shouted, and a tusked swine was shrieking. It had fallen in the road, leg snapped where a hole had opened up in the paving. A family was hastily unloading the beast, and no one seemed eager to put it out of its misery.

  Another jolt, and more glass broke and showered into the street.

  “The moth said south!” a woman cried as she emerged from a building across the street. She was slapping at her husband’s hands as he tried to hold her back. “Come with me!” she begged. “Please?”

  “Moth?” was all he said, and the woman held his coat and tried to pull him with her into the throng.

  “Moth?” Alexia asked.