Tim Lebbon: Echo city

"What?" Rufus said behind her. He'd crawled up close, and now he clung on to the leg of her trousers, shaking.

"Penler," Peer said. "Full of surprises."

She looked across the Levels at the three guard towers. Two of them were abuzz with activity as Border Spites climbed or slid down the rope ladders splayed around their legs. Atop the third tower-the farthest to the west-she could see three guards shielding their eyes as they watched the skyfires.

Go, she thought. Relieve your boredom. See what's happening.

"We'll give it a few moments," she said. "Then we go." Some of the guards started along the northern boundary of the Levels, the sun glinting from their weapons. This is madness, she thought, but she shoved that idea aside. Penler was doing this for her, and if he'd thought there was a chance of her being caught, he'd have suggested otherwise.

It was up to her to make sure his trust was not mislaid.

"Follow me," she said, turning to make sure Rufus understood. He nodded. "Stay close behind me. Stay low." She indicated what she meant with her hand. He nodded again. He understands more than he says, or can say. But that was another mystery to unravel later. One breath at a time, as her poor dead mother used to say. Peer took in a deep breath and left the cover of the buildings.

There were several heavy coughs to the east, and Peer saw smoke trails lifting objects high above the Levels. Upon exploding, they splashed a palette of colors across the sky, and the falling flames twisted around one another like dancing silk snakes. They were unlike any skyfires she had ever seen or heard of before. The sparks did not extinguish but kept spitting and dancing in the air, each one seemingly in concert with those around it. Shapes were formed and dispersed again, as if teasing-fighting rockzards, a diving rathawk plucking its prey from the air, wisps swooping toward and around one another without ever actually touching. For a second she stood amazed, before realizing that this display was not meant for her.

There was more movement way across the Levels, as guards streamed along the border.

Keeping low, Peer headed across, with Rufus following. She had been right about the rains-her boots quickly sank in thick mud. She felt it oozing over the boots' lips and touching her shins, her ankles, and she imagined it as the dust of history. So much was mixed up in this wet, rancid stew. The ruins of whole districts, the pulverized remains of neighborhoods where people had once lived, loved, and died on their own terms.

She heard Rufus behind her, his own boots sucking at the muck as he walked.

Of the three towers in sight, she aimed for the one in the middle. She'd seen the guards abandon that one, and though there were still Border Spites manning the tower to their left, she hoped they would be able to slip past unseen. Keep them firing, she thought, hoping that Penler had a long supply of whatever he was using. Hardly magic, but it was close enough.

They passed tumbled walls, where weeds had grown out of the dust and smothered a building's remains. Peer saw movement among the plants and kept her distance, in case they were biting or stinging things.

Penler's skyfires continued to dance. She stole occasional glances their way, awed and thankful. He's not like us, a woman had once told Peer about Penler, soon after she'd arrived in Skulk. They were drinking together in a tavern, watching the old man buying a fresh bottle of wine. He's got something about him. Peer had smiled at the time, not sure what the woman meant, and over the next couple of years she had mostly forgotten those words. But now the woman's voice rang back to her. It was how the most superstitious among them described someone who dipped into what were considered the darkest of arts.

Halfway across the Levels, she squatted behind a mound of weed-choked rubble, and Rufus did the same. He was following quietly and calmly, keeping low, and she wondered how terrified he must be.

"A rest," she said, rubbing her aching hip. Rufus nodded. She peered around the mound, and now that the other side of the Levels was close, she could scan it for movement. There was nothing. Gray buildings faced them, most of them low but a few consisting of several stories. The architecture here was sparse and functional, but the buildings all contained the familiar arched windows of old Course design. There could be anyone watching from behind those, Peer thought, but that way lay defeat. If she became overcautious, they'd never move again.

She was still quite certain that two of the towers were deserted, but she was no longer sure about the third. She'd seen no movement there for a while. It could be that the Border Spites had gone to witness the fantastical skyfires after all, or maybe they were hunkered down even now, scrutinizing the Levels for the movement one of them swore he'd just seen. If that was the case, they'd do their best not to be seen themselves.

Peer's heart raced, blood thumping in her ears. She'd heard stories about what the guards did to anyone caught trying to flee Skulk. She stretched her right arm, wincing as the air shards twisted against flesh, muscle, and bone. At least her hip was not too painful. Penler had been right; he'd done a good job with that.

"Follow me," she said, and without looking back she started again for the other side.

It did not take long but felt like forever. Three years before, Peer had been forced to watch as a Marcellan torturer shoved a selection of air shards through her arm, and the eyes she felt upon her now hurt almost as much. Whether they were real or imaginary she did not know, but that mattered little.

Panting, sweating, her heart racing at the certainty that they would be caught, she pressed up against the side of a building in Course Canton. Three years, she thought, but the stone beneath her skin felt no different.

The last of Penler's skyfires was fading as it floated slowly to the ground. Crimson sparks turned to a deep, rich blue, landing across the Levels and remaining lit for a while. Blue was Peer's favorite color. Penler knew that.

Her breathing slowing, Peer spent a moment looking back across at Skulk. She felt a curious sense of loss. Among the true criminals over there were wonderful people, whose imaginations and intellects had steered them to beliefs that resulted in banishment. She had been herself in Skulk. Now, back in Echo City, deception was to rule her life.

She nodded to Rufus, smiled, and led the way cautiously into a wide, empty street. And it was only as she began to believe they had escaped that they were caught.

The stupid thing was, she smelled the piss from thirty steps away. An hour earlier, she would have known what that meant and hidden. But her body could take only so much tension, and her sense of caution had given way to a sloppy belief in their good fortune.

We make it back, she thought, and the first thing I smell is chickpig piss. But it was not a chickpig pissing, and as the Border Spite stepped from a doorway farther along the street, still pulling up her trousers, Peer reached for her sword.

She had never killed or stabbed anyone in her life. The nearest she'd come to a fight had been with a drunken fat man, a year after arriving in Skulk, when he'd stumbled into her as she sat on the city wall. He'd drawn a sword and she'd pulled her knife, but he dropped his blade and started laughing before vomiting on her shoes. Leaving him in his own puke, trailing the stink behind her as she walked home, she'd wondered what the outcome would have been had he been not quite so drunk.

The Border Spite drew a short sword in her right hand, a triangular object in her left, and ran at them.

Peer unconsciously took a step back, nudging into Rufus. The sword handle felt cold and slippery in her grasp. "Hide!" she rasped.