Tim Lebbon: Echo city

"Penler, just listen to him, the way he builds his words, the way his voice twists around them-Echoian, but like none I've ever heard."

Penler was still shaking his head.

"Look in his bag! See what he carries, the strange things he's brought. Do you know what this means?"

"Do you?"

"Yes, of course! It changes everything, and-"

"Do you really believe this city can survive change?" he asked. "This city, built on the past?" And suddenly she knew what was wrong. He does believe, she thought, and that's why he's so afraid.

"Penler…"

A tear escaped his left eye and dribbled down his cheek. His face crumpled for a moment, then he seemed to gather himself again, wiping away the tear and standing up from his chair. Never once did he take his eyes off the man in his room.

"You believe," she said.

"I never had any doubt," he whispered, "but I never thought it would be in my lifetime."

"He can't stay in Skulk," Peer said.

"I know. But for now can I just…?"

Peer reached out and brought the old man to her in a hug. He held his breath before hugging her back, his gasp warm and stale against her neck. She had not held anyone this close for a long time.

"I was going to get some breakfast anyway," she said. "But can't you leave Skulk with me?"

"Not me," he said, shaking his head against hers. "Not now. I've been here too long, and too many people know me. I'd slow you down. But I can help."

Peer pulled away so that she could look at him again. His eyes were moist, but she pretended not to notice. "How?"

"Oh, you know me. I have something about me."

"There's no such thing as magic, Penler."

He looked at the man from the desert again, as if to dispute her words. "Tell that to the magician's audience," he said. "Now go. Breakfast. We need a feast." He pressed five shillings into her hand and then walked past her into the room.

Peer watched Penler and the visitor for a beat. He wants him to himself for a while, she thought, and she could hardly blame him. Such a great man would have so many questions.

Outside, Skulk's morning air seemed fresher than usual, cleansed by the previous night's rain. Or perhaps it was the smell of potential.

She bought breakfast from a street vendor-fried chickpig in fresh bread sandwiches, a large carafe of five-bean, and a selection of dried fruits-and on her return to Penler's house she passed a body in an alleyway. The woman was lying on her back, her dusty eyes staring at the dawn-smeared sky and her slit throat gnawed at by rats and rockzards in the night. She was naked, and carved across her chest and stomach was the serpent sigil of one of Skulk's most powerful, brutal gangs.

Peer averted her eyes and walked on. It shamed her, but there was no way she could get involved. The woman must have offered some slight against the gang, and they always left their murder victims where they were for three days and nights before sending their lowliest members to clear away whatever was left. They liked to send a message, and anyone interrupting that message was likely to end up the same way.

It's so easy, Peer thought, and she felt a moment of terror the likes of which rarely visited her. One wrong move, one sideways glance, being in the wrong place when a madman walks by… Death is so easy, and life so precious. I could die here today. What would happen to Rufus then?

Her whole world had changed, and there was plenty more to come. The future was suddenly a weight upon her shoulders, and she knew that she had to be strong. Life had never felt like such a precarious gift as at that moment. Peer hurried through the streets, one hand holding the bag containing breakfast, the other hanging close to her knife.

Penler was waiting for her in the hallway behind his front door. He ushered her in, took the food bag, and dropped it unceremoniously to the floor.

"What's wrong?" he asked, sensing the change in her.

"Nothing. Where's Rufus?"

Penler nodded back toward his main room. "He's like a child, Peer. Full of wonder, but he knows so little." He touched his long, wiry gray hair, twirling it around one finger. "The desert… it's burned something out of him, so many memories. Either that or he's lying."

This time she could see through his doubt. "What do you really think, Penler?"

"I think he's been through some bad times. And his words… strange. Echoian, but almost a different dialect. Almost as if he's relearning a language he hasn't used for some time."

"Did you look in his bag, like I said?"

The old man's face changed. The frown returned, but his eyes sparkled.

"I think I know what some of it is," he said, "but a couple of the things…"

"Did you ask him?"

"He's enjoying looking at my maps."

"Right," Peer said, inclining her head slowly. "And it's not that you want to figure them out for yourself?"

Penler laughed, and it was good to hear the old man sounding like himself again. "You know me so well, Peer."

Eager to see Rufus again, she picked up the breakfast bag and ushered Penler back along the hallway.

Rufus seemed pleased to see her. He pointed at one of the maps but said nothing, his incredulity evident in every crease of his face, every movement he made. She nodded and placed the bag on the large table, next to the contents of Rufus's shoulder bag. Penler stood close beside her, his arm touching hers. He pointed at a small round object, similar to a watch but marked differently.

"This finds direction," he said. "I don't know how, but it works."

"What do you mean?"

"Which way's north?"

Peer pointed without thinking. Most people in Skulk knew the direction of the world that had shunned them.

Penler pulled the small instrument close to them, opened the lid, tapped it, and a shard of metal floated inside, suspended in some viscous liquid. The arrowed end of the shard pointed north.

Peer turned the instrument around, and the arrow turned slowly to maintain the same direction.

"Clever," she said.

"Not clever. Scientific."

"All your city?" Rufus said, aghast. He was staring at a large current map of Echo City that took up most of one wall.

"Yes," Penler said.

"Here," Rufus whispered, moving closer to the area marked as Course Canton and pointing at the shadow of buildings. "Homes?"

"Some," the old man said. "Groups of homes, at least. The blocks in a grid you see spanning the river, they're water refineries. And the straight lines leading from them, they're the canals."

Rufus was watching Penler with his mouth agape, incomprehension clouding his eyes.

"It's a large city," Peer said. "Thirty miles across."

"Miles?"

Peer glanced at Penler.

"From here to Peer's home is less than half a mile," he said. "To walk from the south of the city, where you came in, to its northern edge would take two days and a night."

Rufus turned back to the map, spreading his hands across its surface, as if by touching it he could absorb every wondrous thing it displayed.

"What's that?" Peer muttered, pointing at a long, thin tube.

"I think it's a scope."

She stared hard at Penler, but he was not fooling with her. "A scope like…?"

Penler picked up the tube and handed it to her.

Peer had first seen one of the Scopes when she was four. Her mother had been a tax collector, and she'd taken her on a journey into Marcellan Canton to consult with government officials over some proposed changes to the way tithes were gathered. The Scope had been sitting on the wall surrounding Hanharan Heights, casting its alien gaze down toward Mino Mont. She had stood amazed. Its naked, almost human body had gleamed darkly like the shell of a beetle, its deformed head elongated into a thick tube that ended with the curve of its massive eye. An intricate system of supports had propped the Scope's head, shifting with it, turning on well-greased gears and cogs. Long hair was tied back from its head in tight metal bands. Its genitals hung like shriveled dried fruits, and its arms had withered to nothing. It was not the first chopped Peer had ever seen-there were many deformed in Mino Mont-but it was the first of the Baker's originals, and the most amazing.