Tim Lebbon - Echo city

"They died."

"They disappeared. Everyone who took it-just gone."

"Everyone who took it wasn't the Baker's blood son."

Dane stared at him, and for the first time ever, Nophel saw fear in that fat politician's eyes. He called us friends, he thought, and we have been for a long time. But sometime in the future, he'll become so afraid of where I came from that…

"Have it," Dane said, nodding slowly. "I'll take you down myself."

… that he'll have to kill me. When that time came, Nophel would need to be ready.

Dane led him through the hidden bookcase door. It seemed that today was filled with privileges.

Peer could not help watching Gorham as he prepared drinks for them. The way he moved, his smallest mannerisms, the subtle twitch in his left eye when he was concentrating, all belonged to the man she had once known. Yet here he was now, that same man-leader of the Watchers and a stranger to her all over again.

And he had given her up. Their loving and caring for each other, their tentative plans for a future, all had been discarded when the need of the Watchers grew too great. He'd sacrificed her to the brutality of the Marcellans and their religious pogrom. She thought of that grinning torturer, sweating and slavering as he drove the air shards into her arm, knowing that they could never be withdrawn. Her screams had barely covered his grunts, or the chanting of that bastard Hanharan priest. You're supposed to love everyone! she'd pleaded between long sessions of torture, but he had been only too keen to put her right.

Hanharan loves everyone, he had replied. All he asks is that you love him back.

I love him! Peer had screamed. I love him; I love Hanharan. And then she'd seen that priest's self-righteous, sad smile and noticed that he was actually rather beautiful.

I think we both know you don't mean that deep in your heart, the priest had whispered. And then the grinning man, and the air shards, and later the hammer when she realized she could never mean that, could never really love the myth of Hanharan. And neither could she pretend.

"I left a man in Skulk," she said. Gorham paused in his movement-only briefly, but it was there. "He's been there for a long time. He wrote about the Dragarians and how they were wronged long ago by the city and its rulers. He expressed pity for them, and the Marcellans banished him. A good man." She wondered what Penler was doing now and wished she could be with him. They would talk and argue, debate and agree, and sometimes they'd discuss only the quality of the evening's wine or what the weather might do tomorrow. But with Penler, it was always deeper. Those vines draw such goodness from deep down where no one goes, he might say, or, Imagine the things that weather saw before it reached the city, and the things it will see beyond.

"I'm sorry, Peer."

"It doesn't matter. Only Rufus matters."

"So he comes out of the desert without a name, and you name him yourself. He speaks Echoian, though not fluently."

"He is fluent," Peer insisted, "but it's a child's fluency. Haven't you noticed? He speaks Echoian like a child."

"A murderous child." He brought her a drink and, despite everything, she felt her whole body relax slightly when she smelled the five-bean.

"That was an accident," she said, remembering the Border Spite Rufus had killed after they crossed the Levels. She had not yet told Gorham about that and wasn't sure she would. Perhaps the time to tell had passed. And maybe she didn't trust him.

"But it shows he's dangerous. If he really does come from elsewhere-"

"How the crap can you still doubt it? You saw how he reacted to Malia's truthbugs. He screamed and gibbered, as if whatever he saw was just too terrible." She shivered at the memory, wondering how many others had been subjected to their intrusion. "Has anyone else you've used those things on ever acted that way?"

"No. The bugs usually cause calm, not fear."

"His clothing? The things he carries?"

"There are people in Echo City who might have made all that."

"Really?" She drank some more, looking at Gorham through the steam and trying to read his face. I should hate him, she thought.

"You must hate me," he said. Peer laughed softly. "What?" he asked.

"Gorham," she said, and they both heard the echo of old affections in how she spoke his name. We should be asking about each other, filling in those missing three years, but we're dropped into the importance of the here and now.

Malia entered, her stern face different. She was frightened and amazed, excited and nervous. At least one Watcher now believed in Rufus.

"He's asleep," she said. "I gave him some vinegared stoneshroom to help him rest."

"Thank you," Peer said. Malia nodded and offered the beginnings of a smile.

"So now we need to talk," Gorham said.

"Is this it?" Malia closed the door behind her, pouring a mug of five-bean for herself. The room was an old administration office for the jail, sparse and bleak, but the Watchers had dragged some comfortable furniture down here over time. It felt damp and had soaked up the atmosphere of the place, but it was somewhere to rest.

"I'm not sure we can-" Gorham began, glancing at Peer.

"Hanharan's cock, Gorham! After what she went through because of us, and what she's put herself through for Rufus? Honor her with your trust, at least."

Peer glanced at Gorham, and he lowered his eyes, abashed. He swilled the five-bean in his mug and seemed to study the dregs, like some old seer trying to read the future.

"There's something happening," he said, still not looking up from the mug. "Noises heard deep down. The Garthans are worried."

"How can you know that?" Peer asked cautiously, thinking of Penler's haunted words: The Garthans are never afraid of anything.

"You've heard of Sprote Felder. He's… a friend of ours."

"A Watcher?"

"He doesn't call himself that."

"What sort of noises have them worried?" Peer asked. This is what I heard from Penler… these same rumors…

"Something unknown."

"And one of the Custodian priests," Malia said. "We've talked to him as well. He and his people believe something is coming."

"Maybe they mean Rufus Kyuss," Peer quipped, but there was little humor in her voice, and neither of her companions smiled.

"God of new things," Gorham said. "Maybe he's here to welcome in the future."

"You can't be-"

"Of course I'm not serious!" he said, standing and turning his back on Peer.

"Others in the city are nervous as well," Malia said. "Bellia Ton?"

"I don't know her," Peer said.

"River reader. Her, others, all sensing something. And now you come to us with Rufus, and…"

"And the Watchers may not have to watch for much longer," Gorham said. "We've never known exactly what it might entail, and we still don't-but the end-times we've long expected for Echo City might be here at last."

Peer shook her head, confused at what was being said.

"This is it," Malia said. Peer had never heard fear in the woman's voice before, but it was there now. "This is what the Watchers have been waiting for forever. Even before you came, we were starting to suspect."

"How does Rufus figure in this?" Peer asked.

"He changes everything!" Malia said.

Peer looked from Malia to Gorham, and he continued staring into his mug. But his eyes were alight. Her heart thumped, and she felt a queasy excitement.

"Your friend from afar might just be our salvation," Gorham said. "And I can't believe his appearance is a coincidence. If Echo City ends, we have to leave to survive. And if he truly came from across the Bonelands…" He looked up at Peer at last. "We have to get him to the Baker."

"Yeah," Malia said.

"But we should tell someone, shouldn't we?" Peer asked. "There must be people we should tell?"