Tim Lebbon - Echo city

They pushed across the surge of people and made their way back up to the Marcellan Canton wall. Go south to Skulk, someone kept whispering, and though Peer looked, she could not see who the whisperer was.

"It's history exploding," a man's voice said. Peer glanced around, and a short fat man was staring directly at her. He was well dressed, his skin was smooth, his hands soft and hair well cut. A lawyer, perhaps, or someone who worked in the upper echelons of the Marcellans' widespread governing network.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"History. Down there." He nodded at the ground, whispering in case the Echoes heard. "Exploding. There's so much of it, see? We've been building on it forever, letting the old times sink down and fade away without saying a proper goodbye. There are phantoms down there that don't know they're dead, and they say there are whole civilizations, whole cities, just going along like they're the here and now. And the Garthans!" He waved one hand and gazed about surreptitiously, though they were surrounded by a hundred other people. "They're the players of the past. Explorers, they call them. But, no. Players. Manipulators!"

"You really think-"

"Hush, girl. I don't think; I know. It's history exploding. It's been under pressure for so long, and now it's all coming back." His face paled, and suddenly he did not seem to be enjoying his rumor-mongering anymore. "Coming back to haunt us." Then he was gone, pushing away from her as though he had contaminated Peer by telling her his ideas.

"Come on," Alexia said. "Through the gate, along the wall, next alleyway." They forced their way against the flow, passing into Marcellan without seeing any sign of the Scarlet Blades that should be guarding it. As they worked their way along the base of the wall, it was not long before they realized why.

The four Blades had been battered and crushed to death. Around them in the street lay the bodies of those they had taken with them-maybe ten people, around whom the crowds parted in silent respect. At least one of the bodies was that of a child.

"I don't want to see any more," Peer said.

"One thing you learn in the Blades: Civilization balances on a knife edge." Alexia tugged Nophel onward, and Peer went with them. "It's the alley behind those poor bastards."

"You won't escape them there." The short fat woman was sitting ten steps from the dead Blades, a slashed red tunic around her shoulders. She bore a terrible wound across her stomach. Peer thought she must be bleeding to death.

"Escape who?"

"The outsiders. Haven't you heard? Dragarians-invading from the north. Garthans-from below." She rocked slowly back and forth, panting, and Peer wondered which corpse she mourned.

"Peer," Alexia said, and Peer was happy to be led away.

"Outsiders!" The woman's voice carried to them, and there were others shouting at her to Shut the fuck up, and Keep it to yourself, and You're scaring my children.

"Here," Alexia said, indicating a half-open door.

The ground shook, people screamed, and a building fell close by. Whatever it is, it's really big. Alexia steered Nophel inside first, and Peer followed, glad to be free of the crowd.

The Scarlet Blade house had been ransacked. Any spare weapons were gone, and someone had defecated on the dead Blades' table. Peer was amazed that, while fleeing for their life, someone would take the time to do that.

"Over here," Alexia said. "I remember using this one a couple of times before." Against the stone wall stood a huge wooden storage unit, shelves now swept clean of whatever they might have held. They waded through piles of smashed plates, torn sheets, and shattered storage jars shining amid spilled food, and Alexia pried with her sword behind the unit.

"Help me… pull!"

Peer and the Unseen heaved and pulled, propping their feet against the wall to give added leverage, and, without warning, the unit suddenly tipped and fell. Behind it was an old door, bolted into the wall five times. It took several smashes from Alexia's sword handle on each bolt to get them sliding.

Behind the door was a spiral staircase heading down and, piled in a nook in the wall, several oil torches.

"We'll see daylight again soon," Alexia said. But hers was a forced hope, and Peer could see that. Darkness had never seemed so forbidding. The three of them stared down the stairwell, listening for the sounds of things rising below, sniffing the air, and wondering just how mad they must be.

Peer picked up an oil torch, lit it on the first strike, and handed it to Nophel. "We'll need our sword hands free," she said. The injured man smiled, ghastly and wan in the torchlight.

"Hate to say it," Nophel said to Alexia, "but do you know the way?"

The Unseen smiled softly, lit her own torch, and started down the stairs.

They traveled two miles through a time gone by, taking it in turns to support Nophel, and all the while the cloying silence was more terrifying than the noise of the crowds they had left behind. In the darkness lay a potential for terrible violence, and that potential was being realized more and more. They heard deep rumbles in the distance-behind them, they thought, though they could not be certain. Some of those rumbles seemed to echo as roars. And sometimes these roars grew and grew, and they had to try to find cover and lie down as the ground shook and dust and rocks fell from the shadows above them.

What are we really doing? Peer thought. The city was shaking to pieces, the population was panicking, and her only aim was to reach the Baker with a canteen of cooling, thickening blood. Rufus might be insane, and the Dragarians thought he was their god. Malia was dead. Many other people were dead. Am I really that mad?

Yet again, she wished Penler was with her. Dependable Penler, whose knowledge and intelligence would see him through these confusions. And, thinking of him, she realized that his life was about to be turned upside down as well.

"They're all going to Skulk," she said to the shadows, but Alexia and Nophel seemed not to hear.

The Unseen led them uncannily across Crescent, transposing Peer's memories of her journey to the laboratory aboveground onto the dead landscape they now walked. Old trails down here echoed the path of current trails above, and Nophel managed the journey without a single complaint. His wound had stopped bleeding for now, but the amount of blood he had lost was shocking. The Dragarian crossbow bolt protruded from his chest just below his collarbone, pinning his dirty cloak to his body. Even if he survived the internal injuries, Peer thought, infection might well kill him.

When they finally drew close to the Baker's subterranean rooms, Peer prepared for the welcoming committee. She glanced around nervously, listening for the sounds of flying things or the cautious tread of the Pserans, but the Echo was theirs alone. She found the door they had entered before, pushed it open, and was suddenly convinced of what would be awaiting them.

Gorham and Nadielle never made it back. They're lying dead way down where the deepest Echoes merge with myth and legend, killed by whatever's shaking the city.

She entered first, walking into the vast womb-vat chamber alone. Lights still shone, but several of the vats had broken and collapsed, slumped to the ground like giant melted candles.

One still bubbled and spat.

And then Gorham emerged from behind the vat. He froze when he saw her, but she had never been so glad to see anyone in her life.

"Gorham," she said, and ran for him. He seemed changed by whatever he had been through, but she would not ask him yet. He looked surprised at her eagerness to see him. Both of them had new histories to learn. But right then, the feel of the present when she held him was all that mattered.