Tim Lebbon - Echo city

A moment of doubt gripped him. Is it really Dane I need to tell? But of all the Marcellans, Dane was the closest to a friend he had. And there really was no one else.

Heart thumping from exertion, eye wide as though it could retain the dread image of what he had seen, he thumped once on the door and then entered.

Dane was standing naked at a table in the far corner of the room, cooking slash and inhaling the fumes through a series of wet pipes. The flesh of his ample thighs and buttocks quivered as he breathed in, and Nophel heard the sighs of gentle pleasure. In the center of the room, reclining on the vast round bed, two naked women idly stroked each other. One of them glanced up, apparently unconcerned at being disturbed. And then she saw Nophel.

"Oh!" she gasped. She stared at his face, still shadowed by the hood, her brazen nakedness a sign of her sick fascination. I'm not a person to her, Nophel thought, and he felt the familiar flush of shame that he had spent his entire life trying to push down.

Dane turned around, taking a moment to focus. "Nophel," he said.

"We must talk," Nophel said.

Dane pulled the pipe to his lips again and pursed them around its end-a delicate action for such a fat man. His rounded stomach hung so low that his genitals were almost hidden from view.

"Poor man," the other naked woman said. She had slipped from the bed and stood, unashamed, scratching idly at her stomach with one hand while she looked at him.

"Leave us if you will, ladies," Dane said.

"But, Dane," the first woman began, "we were just getting-"

"It's important," Nophel said. He was looking at the women as he spoke, and he took several steps forward, knowing that the burning oil lamps would cast more light onto his face from this angle.

The standing woman stepped back, crossing both hands over her sex.

"Tomorrow," Dane said. He turned his back on the women and breathed in more slash, waving Nophel over.

The women left without dressing, exiting through a door hidden in an expanse of books lining one wall. Nophel had never been in there, though he knew it led to a series of stairs and corridors-Dane's own private route down into the vastness of Hanharan Heights. He felt a pang of jealousy that Dane would let two whores use this way yet not let him, but he shoved it aside. This was not about favors, or even trust. Both men wanted what was best for the city, and though their outlooks might differ, they came together about the bigger picture.

"It's been a while," Dane said. He turned and smiled. "You're sure I can't interest you in…?" He nodded at the door through which the women had vanished. "Rebec really is very good. She does things with her lips and a mouthful of dart root that'll have you calling to Hanharan's divine cock for mercy."

Nophel shook his head. Dane's blasphemy never surprised him. "They pity me," he said.

"You interest them. They'd explore you."

"A gateway opened in Dragar's Canton."

For a moment Dane's smile remained as he blinked away the effects of slash, absorbing what Nophel had said. Then his face dropped and he became the politician Nophel knew so well.

"A gateway?"

"Or a door. Something. It was quick." Nophel breathed deeply, inhaling the scents of cooked slash, wine, and sex. He indulged in none of them, and the odors stirred little within him.

Dane waddled to the bed and lifted his gown, swinging it around his shoulders with a surprising deftness. Fat he might be, and cursed with many vices, but Nophel had long suspected that Dane was stronger and fitter than he looked. Perhaps deception came naturally to such a man, or maybe he had simply taken advantage of circumstance.

"You're certain of what you saw?" he asked.

Nophel nodded.

"The Northern Scope, it's fit and well? Healthy?"

"There was no fault. It wasn't a blur in the mirror or an inconsistency in the Scope's vision. Quick, granted, but I'm sure. Part of a dome slid open. Something came out. The dome closed again." He shut his eyes for a beat, remembering what he'd seen to ensure it tallied with his description. Something came out-that was the part that still confused him.

"What came out?"

"I don't know."

"Hmm." Dane regarded him for a moment, then came closer and touched his shoulder. "Sit with me." He walked around the bed to an area of floor seats, the table in the center bearing several opened wine bottles and a scatter of glasses and goblets. There was also the remains of a meal. "You're well?" he asked.

"I'm as fine as I can be," Nophel said.

"Then we have a problem that needs investigating."

"You'll take it to the Council?"

"Of course." Dane eased himself into a seat, the upholstery expanding and stretching to take his weight. Nophel sat opposite, uncomfortable as ever in such plush surroundings. He preferred his own rooms lower down in the vast sprawl of buildings that made up Hanharan Heights-book-lined, simple, with the smell of the past hanging in the air from old manuscripts and older maps. Nophel had once met Sprote Felder, the renowned explorer of the Echoes, and the two had talked for hours about things most Echoians would never even know. Nophel respected that man-perhaps envied him too-but he was as much an explorer as Felder. The only difference was, he explored history through his mind. And the history he sought was all to do with the Bakers-those damned women who had cursed him so.

"And what will they do?" he asked.

"They'll want to talk to you. To ask exactly what you saw." Dane sighed and poured himself a large glass of ruby wine. "Then they'll debate the veracity of your account, argue once again over your control of the Scopes. Express their continuing mistrust at your heritage."

"I gave them the Baker."

"Some don't see it that way, Nophel. You know that well enough." He sipped at the wine, nodded, then clunked the glass down on the table. "They'll argue and agree, then dispute and call for more meetings, and it'll take them three days to get to where I've arrived in two heartbeats."

"Where you've arrived…"

"Knowing that we can take no chances." Dane shook his head, the metal bonds in his tightly tied hair tinkling together. "Dragar's is given its privacy, and most have forgotten it's even there. It's a blank spot on the city, Nophel, but you know as well as I that we keep a good watch. That's partly what they're for." He nodded vaguely at the ceiling. "And also part of the reason why you and I are such good friends."

"Maybe it happens a lot," Nophel said. "Maybe they're always slipping in and out, and it's just that I happened to see it today."

"Do you believe that?"

Nophel thought about what he'd seen, trying to make it clear in his mind. "No," he said softly.

"No. That's why you need to go and investigate."

"Me?" He was shocked, but pleased as well. Nophel knew he was a monster to most, but he had never denied the presence of his own ego. It was something to do with fitting in.

"You're quiet," Dane said. "You can move well. People…" He shrugged. "You know."

"People avoid me."

"Yes. So while I take this to the Council and let them bicker like old women, go and look for me, Nophel. Find out what came out and what it means. And bring it to me."

Nophel nodded, running his fingers around the rim of an empty wineglass. When he looked, a fine line of lip paint slashed across his finger, and he thought of where else those lips had been. He felt no longings and never had.

"I'll need something from you," he said. "Something to help me."

Dane raised his hands in a whatever-you-want gesture.

"I need to be more than quiet and unseen. More than unnoticed. I need to be invisible."

"Blue Water?" Dane gasped.

Nophel nodded again.

"But… there's very little left. Only drops. And nobody has ever survived it." Dane stood and paced around the table. His robe knocked over his wineglass and it spilled, dripping onto the pale carpet. That stain will always be there, Nophel thought, long after I'm gone. "You know we tried it on some of the Blades, Nophel, and…"