Tim Lebbon - Echo city

It disappeared, jumping, running, and dropping its way north through the bridge's most recent Echoes, and his work was done. He climbed back up to watch the woman again, pleased to be among people once more.

The rat moved quickly, familiar with this underside and driven by the compulsion only recently planted within it. Leaving the bridge behind, it stayed with the drains and sewers. Other rats saw it and cowered away, because there was something about it that smelled of death. It passed different creatures down there in the dark, and most of them also moved aside, though some sniffed after it, curious at the message it might carry.

It did not go too deep. It never went too deep-especially now.

It came to a place where the sewers vented, and here it left cover and ventured out into the open. It moved in slow, hesitant sprints, looking around for danger but forgetting where the worst threat actually dwelled.

The rathawk had a nest in the high walls of Marcellan Canton. It had nested in the same place for thirty years, mating with the same female, and together they had raised nineteen chicks that had survived to adulthood. It flew, ate, and slept, but implanted deep within its mind was some other compulsion that was fed only at the rarest of times. One of those times was today. Riding a thermal high above the walls, it spotted a glint in the shadows far below. Without thinking, simply following a set of instructions implanted when it was very young, the rathawk folded its wings and plummeted. For a few beats, it was the fastest thing in Echo City, other than thought. At the last moment it spread its wings to brake its descent, extended its claws, and the rat died so quickly that it uttered no sound.

Usually the rathawk would take such bounty back to its nest. It would rip off the head, tear out the poisonous innards, and throw them away for ghourt lizards to snap up from the wall's surface. The remaining dark meat would feed its chicks for another day. Sometimes it would even take some of the meat for itself. But today it clasped the rodent in its claws and did not rip.

The rathawk circled high and then flew north. When it saw and smelled the water far below, it rested its wings and circled down, singing a unique song as it went. By the time it reached the rooftop, there was a man standing there. The rathawk, usually afraid of people, alighted on the man's outstretched arm.

The man took the dead rat from the bird's claws. He placed the corpse gently on the parapet, noting the blood-speckled note tied to its tail, and picked up a chunk of swine meat for the rathawk. The bird took it with a gentle respect it probably did not understand, then lifted away. Within moments it was a speck in the sky, and when he blinked the man lost sight of it altogether.

"Now what's this?" he said, a little annoyed. A naked woman lay on his bed in the room below, and his mouth was still wet from her. But the rathawk call had shrunk his enthusiasm, and he had a feeling that he'd remain unspent for the rest of this day. A message sent in such a risky manner could mean only one thing: important news.

The question was, good or bad?

He snipped off the message roll with the tip of his knife and nudged the dead rat from the parapet. He unrolled the paper. His eyes widened.

"Oh," said the man. He rushed down the stone steps, and though the woman was still lying with her legs splayed, his mind was already far away. He waved off her objections, shrugged on trousers and a jacket, slipped on his boots, and left the room.

Out in the street, he looked around nervously as he hurried along. This felt like something that could bring only danger and upset with it. Danger for all the Watchers. And upset for Gorham. He never had got over that fucking woman.

Alert for any indication that he was being followed, he waited in a spice garden for a while, hunkered down among a profusion of bushes and vines, low plants and trees, breathing in deeply and trying to pass the time by identifying each spice. When he was certain he was alone, he slipped through the garden and emerged on the banks of a canal, startling a pair of mating ducks into flight. The female pecked at the male. I know how you feel, he thought, watching the drake take flight.

Farther along the canal, a woman lived in a boat. He knocked on one of the small round windows and her face quickly appeared, almost as if she'd been awaiting his arrival. She opened a hatch in the roof and climbed lithely out, sitting above him with a small crossbow in her right hand. He'd seen it before-crafted from the finest of metals, and it was whispered that it came from one of the older Marcellan Echoes, though no one had ever hazarded a guess as to how she came to own it.

"Malia," the man said. "I have a message passed down the route." She raised one eyebrow. He'd never felt comfortable around this one, even when her husband was still alive.

"Well?" she prompted.

"Peer Nadawa," he said. "She's back."

Malia's expression did not change. Her eyes glimmered as she shifted slightly. Her pale fingers grew pink again as they loosened around the handle of the crossbow. Then she slid from the barge's roof and landed a step in front of him, and wafting from her he could smell the intoxicating aroma of pure, unrefined slash.

"Forget this, Devin," she said.

He nodded, turned, and walked away, hoping that the angry naked woman would still be in his room when he returned.

Peer could have sat there forever, but she knew it was time to go. Gorham would know what to do. Even after she'd been caught and banished, the old network might have remained operative. Either way, she was certain that he'd still have contact with the Watchers.

Besides, she was desperate to see him, and every pause was another moment when they were not together. There were thoughts that had reared their heads but that she would not entertain: He's dead; he's moved and changed his name; he's given me up for lost and is with another woman. Though she had long ago given up hope of ever seeing him again, she had never stopped loving him. He'll be just the same, she thought. Yet a flicker of nervousness had seeded in her chest, and she could do nothing to extinguish it.

She and Rufus stood, and she left a couple of shillings for the wine. She glanced around for anyone who might be watching them. There was a group of women sitting in front of the next building along, all of them sucking on flexible pipes leading from a central smoke pot. Two of them were looking Rufus up and down, and one of the two had a hungry look in her eyes. Rut-slash smokers, out looking for men. Other than that, Peer and Rufus seemed to go unnoticed.

"Where now?" Rufus said.

"My friend used to live a couple of miles from here. If that's not changed, we'll see him soon."

Rufus started to follow her again, and Peer saw a flash of drug-fueled jealousy in one of the smoking women's eyes.

"Rufus," she said, "walk with me, not behind me." He smiled softly, but his eyes never stayed on her for long. They were drinking in the surroundings, flitting here and there and back again, and she envied him seeing all this for the first time. For her, returning here from Skulk, Six Step Bridge had a vital freshness to it. She could barely imagine what Rufus was thinking and feeling.

She wished he could tell her. Soon, she thought. Gorham will know what to do and how to get him to the Watchers. Rufus is what they've been watching for forever. Proof of something beyond.

As they left the bridge and started across a large park, the bustle faded away. There were still many people around them, but they were sitting or lying in the grass, eating or reading, staring or loving. The sound of a hooting heron came from the lake on the park's far side, and wind whispered through the numerous barch trees, setting their thin, heavy branches swaying.