Tim Lebbon - Echo city

"The Blades killed a terrorist five hundred years ago, not a prophet," Alexia said.

"Then explain me," Rufus said. "They provided the Baker with his essence, stored for centuries in their holiest of holy shrines. She chopped me. And then she used me for her own ends instead. Sent me away. Cast me into the desert. Her experiment."

"So you're saying that you're…" Peer said, shaking her head, too confused to finish.

"Returned to the Dragarians from out of the Bonelands to lead them into Honored Darkness."

"I'm going to hit him again," Alexia said.

"The farther you take me, the more people they will kill to get me back," Rufus said. "Or… you can let me go now."

"We can't!" Peer said. "You're important, and the Baker needs you to-"

"She disposed of me once before. Why does she need me now?"

"Because you crossed the desert," Peer said. "You're immune to whatever's out there. Maybe Dragar was too, whoever he was, and-"

"No," Rufus said, "I'm much more than that." He smiled softly at Peer, and then there was a knife at his throat.

"You're no god," Nophel said. "And you're going to take me to see my mother."

"Mother?" someone gasped, but Nophel did not know or care who.

Rufus simply stared at him, calm and smug, and in his green eyes Nophel saw some of what the Baker must feel. With such knowledge must come superiority. With talents beyond those of anyone else in the city-in their world-there must be power and responsibility.

The air in the Bellower chamber thrummed. Rufus smiled.

"You won't cut my throat."

"No?" Nophel said, leaning in closer, curving his other arm around the tall man's back to pull tight.

"No," Rufus said.

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.