Tim Lebbon: Echo city

But no one sent to Skulk ever returned. It had been a long time since Peer had been here, and she'd forgotten just how heavily guarded the border was.

They called them the Levels. Once, before the plague, the dividing line between Skulk and Course Cantons had been difficult to distinguish. A street here, a square there, the banks of the Southern Reservoir, perhaps the edge of a park or the center line of a road. After the salt plague, there'd been a need to mark the border permanently. And so the razing had begun. In history books, the transcribers had gone to some effort to describe the methods used and the caution taken to prevent injury or worse to those innocents caught up in the chaos. In reality, the Marcellans had ordered the razing to be completed within two days. In such a short time, with so many fires set, ruin wagons dispatched, and buildings marked for destruction, the suffering of innocents was inevitable.

A fifteen-mile-long strip of land from southwest to southeast Echo City had been flattened of everything that stood or grew upon it. The Levels followed the old borders, up to a mile wide in some places, while here and there they were only a few hundred feet, one side still visible from the other. Following the razing and burning, almost two hundred watchtowers had been constructed along the northern edge of the Levels. For the next few years these were manned by Scarlet Blades, but as the public slowly forgot the plague and its consequences-or, if not forgot, at least put them to one side while they continued with their lives, content that the Marcellans had saved Echo City from its gravest, darkest hour-the Blades announced themselves as too important to spend their time on guard duties. A new branch of the Marcellans' army was therefore created. The Border Spites-brutal and barely trained-were employed from all levels of Echoian society, the only requirements being that they were strong, able to fight, and willing to kill if the need arose.

The need frequently did. Even since Peer had been in Skulk, she had heard of almost a hundred attempted escapes. They all ended the same way, and the rotting corpses were left across the Levels as warnings.

Facing the Levels, hidden in the shadow of a tall house, Peer could see three watchtowers. A gentle drift of smoke tailed from one of them as the Border Spites cooked their lunch. Between them and her were the sad, fire-blackened ruins.

"This is where we say goodbye," Penler said. He sighed heavily, staring anywhere but at Peer.

"You could still come," she said.

"No, I'll slow you."

She tapped her hip, aching a little after their long walk. "I'm not as fast as I was, you know."

"But I did a good job on that." He looked at her at last, and she saw tears in his eyes. Tears, and something else: regret.

And she wondered suddenly how she had been so fucking stupid all this time. Old man, she sometimes jokingly called him, but it was how she perceived him. Just what had he thought of those words coming from the woman he loved? She could never know. Even if Rufus had not come along, it was far too late, because they had become such good friends.

"I'll miss you," he said.

What do I say? She hugged him tight, confused, and angry at herself for being so selfish that she had never seen.

Penler held her. The three of them stood in silence, and Peer felt the pressure of that silence weighing on her. He's waiting for me to say something. But she did not know what to say. I'm sorry just wouldn't do, and time was passing.

"You need to give me an hour," he said, pulling away from her and staring back across the Levels.

"When will we know it's time to go?"

"You'll know." He'd strengthened now, looking forward, bringing himself back to what needed doing to get Peer and Rufus away. Out of his life forever.

"Penler…" she said.

He smiled softly. "You'll do fine."

"No, I don't mean… I wanted to say…" But she'd been blind all this time, and opening her eyes at the end would be pointless.

"Just remember me," Penler said.

"I will see you again," she replied.

His smile dropped, but only slightly. They both realized the likelihood of that.

Penler gave Rufus a one-armed hug before he went, then weaved his way back along the narrow street and disappeared into the blackened heart of a ruined temple. As well as letting go of Peer, he was saying goodbye to this remarkable visitor from the desert.

"Friends," Rufus said, looking after Penler.

"Yes, we are," Peer said. A sense of loss hit her in the gut, and she sat down heavily against the wall. They had a while to wait. And for her last hour in Skulk Canton, Peer reflected upon how self-obsessed she had been.

The previous day's rains had turned the Levels to muck. Peer could see the black pools from where they waited, and she knew that the crossing would not be easy. The Levels were not actually level at all; the destruction a century before had been rushed, and here and there some remains still stood. Walls were piled with debris, and the dark pits of exposed basements led down to older Echoes. She hoped that whatever Penler planned, he gave them long enough.

Each of the three watchtowers she could see was manned. The guards in one were still cooking, and distant laughter came her way. In the second tower there had been movement as several Border Spites changed watch, and from the third she'd seen a guard pissing over the side.

"You'd better be who we think you are," she said mildly.

Rufus still wore that lost expression.

"You remember nothing from out there?" she asked.

"Bones," he said. "Sand. Dead desert." He looked down at his hands, twisted in his lap.

"And nothing from before?"

Rufus shook his head. "Maybe… there is nothing."

"No," Peer said. "I don't believe that. I can't. Do you feel sick, weak? No, you're fine. You're good. You're getting better! So there's something about you…"

Rufus looked at her and glanced away again, perhaps not understanding. He stared across the Levels at the beginnings of Course Canton beyond. The buildings were low and stark, most of them abandoned this close to Skulk, but they still carried a heavy significance. Over there was freedom and choice. Over here was imprisonment and necessity. The Levels were where everything changed.

"You told me I'm not her. So who are you looking for?"

"I don't know," he said, perhaps too sharply. And the first explosion came from the east.

Rufus jumped, scrambling to his feet, but Peer crawled across the debris-strewn alley and held him down. He was breathing hard and fast, but she held his jaw with one hand and turned his face until he was looking right at her. His eyes are so green, she thought, and she shook her head, shushing him as the noise echoed across the Levels.

When Peer was six, there had been a series of anonymous attacks on Mino Mont's water refineries. The authorities at the time had blamed them on the Dragarians, though there had been no such instances before or since, and the attacks had soon ended. What she remembered most was not the panic that had spread quickly through Mino Mont for those few days one summer-fear that if the refineries were destroyed, then the Northern and Eastern Reservoirs would quickly dry up-but the sounds of those few explosions. She had never heard anything like them before or since-until now.

Crawling to the mouth of the alley, she looked east and saw several plumes of smoke about a mile away. They did not seem to be rooted to the ground but floated on the breeze.

Three more explosions came, bursting in the air like rapidly blooming roses, spewing sparks followed by thin limbs of smoke. The colors were bright and varied, and each explosion flowered and spread differently. She had seen skyfires before many times, during street parties to celebrate an important Marcellan's birthday or to mark the execution of another Pretender. But they were always a weak, sputtering affair. Never anything like this. These filled the sky.