Tim Lebbon - Echo city

He dresses quickly and descends the ladder from the raised sleeping platform at one end of the warehouse. The stone floor below is cold, even though he wears thick-bottomed sandals, and a light mist plays around his ankles. If he concentrates, he can feel the cold mist kissing his skin. His mother will never tell him what she is working on next. Sometimes, the things she makes scare him. And sometimes they scare her as well. Once he asked why she did what she did, on an evening when tiredness seemed ready to wither her to nothing and tears hung suspended in her eyes-held back, he knew, only by her love and concern for him. Because it's all I can do, she had replied, and he had never heard her so low. The next day she'd been bright and cheery, as if the sun had reignited her optimism.

"Mother?" he calls. His voice echoes around the cavernous warehouse. It was once home to produce brought from Crescent on vast barges across the Western Reservoir, but when more people started crossing the border to select their own, the barges ceased sailing. Sometimes the room still stinks of rotten mepple and dart-root leaves. "Mother?"

There is no answer. He walks toward the vats, keeping close to the wall and sunlight because he never likes going too close. They're strange. Sometimes they vibrate as if something is turning around inside too fast to see; other times they drip water and tick, expanding and contracting as the processes work away. And occasionally he hears sounds. The scraping of bony, sharp things across their inner surfaces. Bubbles breaking surface. Whispers.

There are four large vats and then eight smaller ones, and by the time he's passed them all, Rufus is aching for a pee. This end of the warehouse is home to his mother's workrooms, several smaller areas partitioned off from the main hall by timber walls barely higher than her head. In one there is a toilet and a huge iron bath, and he heads there now to relieve himself and wash sleep and dreams from his skin.

"He's not yours yet," his mother's voice says. That's all. The silence that follows is heavy, like a bubble ready to burst or a claw about to scrape up the inside of a vat. Rufus (what is my name, what does she call me other than son…?)

– freezes, breath held and one foot raised. He lowers it gently, glancing down to avoid stepping on anything-grit, paper, an insect-that might make the slightest sound. He lets out his held breath, then opens his mouth to slowly draw in another.

And then the voice comes, and it sets his skin tingling.

"All for us, Baker. Our commission, Baker." It's a horrible voice, wet and guttural, and each word is formed by someone or something that does not usually speak the language. And though awkward and forced, its disdain for his mother is palpable.

"He's not quite ready," his mother says. She sounds weak. Rufus is not used to that.

He sees most of the people his mother works for, and though he does not really understand the forces of commerce when applied to his mother's gifts and talents, he likes the fact that they have visitors. Smiling Hanharan priests with their soft hands and ready smiles, Scarlet Blade soldiers wearing smart uniforms and swords, businessmen from Marcellan Canton with strange ideas that his mother nods at, adapts, and re-creates; they all provide color and variety to the days, now that…

Now that she no longer takes him out. It's too dangerous, she said recently, and that was after she'd been drinking wine and sinking lower and lower in her wide seat. Since then she'd forbidden him to ask why.

Rufus moves softly, slowly, heading for the door leading to a small storeroom. It is always left open because his mother says, Stuff in there needs to air. He touches the cool wood and waits for that deep, strange voice to come again before pushing it open. He cannot quite hear the words this time-the voice is lower and quieter, a burgeoning threat. In the room, he breathes easier and looks around.

None of these partitioned rooms has a ceiling. He looks at where the sloping ceiling of the great hall meets the outside wall at the far end of the storeroom. There are shadows there, and heavy spiderwebs. And, piled in the corner, wooden boxes that he can never recall seeing opened, moved, or touched.

The conversation continues, his mother's voice steady but afraid, the stranger's deep and difficult. Neither voice is raised, but Rufus has seen enough to know that there is nothing friendly here. It's too dangerous, his mother said, and he wonders whether, after this, staying inside will be too dangerous as well.

He climbs the boxes, taking his time. They creak and groan, but no one seems to hear. On the highest box, lying almost flat, he lifts his head slowly to peer over the top of the partition, and when he sees the thing talking to his mother, he draws in a sharp breath, ignoring the spider that is crawling across his forehead toward his left eye, not seeing his mother's startled look as she spots him… seeing nothing but the thing turning its head and fixing him with its piercing indigo eyes, then lowering slowly to its knees and stretching out its spidery hands for him "Rufus!" Peer was shaking him, slapping him softly around the face.

"What is it?" Malia asked.

"Nothing." She shook some more and Rufus started awake, pushing away from the wall and wiping at his left eye, his right hand held out before him to ward off something none of them could see. "It's fine," she said softly, grasping his seeking hand and squeezing tight.

"What's wrong with him?" Gorham demanded. "He was acting strange back in Course, and now this?"

"He's confused," Peer said. She resisted talking slowly, as to a child, because that would be petty. "He's overwhelmed and afraid."

"Well, try to calm him," Gorham said. "If he's worried now, when we go down to the Baker…" He trailed off, but the implication was clear.

"What's down there?" she asked, looking up at Gorham. He liked to stand that way, she remembered, while I took him in my mouth. Maybe it always was about dominance with him.

Gorham squatted close to her, glancing up at the Watchers and nodding along the road. Keep watch, that look said. Peer had yet to ask him how many Watchers there were left, and whether they all ever met, and what exactly he was now leading.

"She's careful," he said, glancing back and forth between Rufus and Peer. "She has to be. Not many people know about her, and as far as she's aware, the Marcellans think her mother died and left nothing. They think they ended the ancient line of Bakers, and she likes it that way."

"What happened to her work?" Rufus asked, and there was something more than curiosity in his voice.

"The old Baker? After she was killed, they destroyed everything. I can still remember the fire, though I was a teenager then. Didn't know what any of it meant, only that the Scarlet Blades had caught and executed… I think they called her a 'threat to the city.' The fire burned for three days, and by the time it started dwindling, they'd set up food stalls and ale wagons for the curious."

Rufus nodded, still holding Peer's hand. His own was slick with sweat.

"Why?" Gorham asked.

"I'm interested," Rufus said. "You're taking me to see this important woman, whom the rest of the city knows little about. The rulers of your city killed her mother. I'm wondering…" He looked away, and Peer thought, Just what is he wondering?

"The rulers of the city will kill you if they know about you," Gorham said. "Reason enough?"

Rufus nodded, smiled, and touched his forehead-a curious gesture that none of them recognized. "Sorry," he said.

"No need to apologize." Gorham stood. "We'll go down soon. Malia and I will go first. We know what to expect."

"And what's that?" Peer asked.

"Nadielle protects herself well. We'll meet chopped people on the way down. Just warning you."