Tim Lebbon - Echo city

Dane charged me with bringing this thing back to him, Nophel thought. But it had teeth, and its fingers and toes ended in claws, and even its wingtips were bony and sharp, glittering with moistness that could have been poison. He looked to Alexia, considering asking her for help. But her eyes had taken that faraway look again, and she seemed even less substantial than before.

The Dragarian looked at him and grinned, exposing too many teeth for a human.

"What are you?" Nophel asked. The Dragarian did not respond, but Nophel already knew. He was one of their soldiers. The Marcellans had their Scarlet Blades and the specially trained units within their ranks used to infiltrate, kidnap, or murder. The Dragarians had this. Before they had built their domes and retreated, they vowed that the prophesied return of the murdered boy they had proclaimed their god would bring war. It seemed that under cover of their domes, they had been preparing.

"You've come to spy," Nophel said.

"No," the Dragarian replied.

"Then why?"

"Seeing the sights." The thing sniggered, shifting position again to move weight from its punctured chest.

"What has it told you?" Nophel asked Alexia, but she frowned, appearing not to have heard or understood the question. She looked at Nophel as if she had never seen him before, and when he stepped forward and reached for her, she shrank away, fading as she moved. "Alexia!"

The flying thing laughed some more. Nophel glanced at it, anger seething, and when he looked back, Alexia was climbing the stairs. He grabbed for her leg but missed. As he ascended, she faded from view completely, and he knew then that she was climbing these stairs somewhere else, seeing a different view, and perhaps he was nothing in her memory at all.

He paused on that tightly curving staircase, leaning on a step and catching his breath, trying to work out what to do. Dane would expect him to return with something-and Nophel could not help feeling that there was more to the Blue Water than Dane had told him. It had been easy drinking it down, but perhaps the antidote would be more difficult to procure.

Mother, he thought, have you doomed me again? The old anger bit in-rage at what she had done to him-as well as a desperate fear that he had willingly invited another Baker-inspired tragedy into his life. He slowed his breathing and calmed his mind, knowing that panic could never help. She was dead. Anything that happened now was up to him.

The thing in the basement had called him ghost. He had to show it that ghosts could bite.

Nophel moved quickly. As he stepped down into the basement room again, the Dragarian turned its attention upon him, confirming that he could still be seen.

"Has your friend left-" it began, but Nophel gave it no chance to continue. He stepped on one stretched chain, forcing the creature low to the ground and crushing its injured chest against the stone. As it screamed in surprised agony, he straddled it, pulled his knife, and sat heavily on its back. He felt the wings against his thighs, warm thin things with blood pumping visibly through thick veins.

He grabbed the Dragarian's hair-it was greasy and slick, and he had to twist it around his hand to maintain a grip-and pulled its head back. He nestled the knife against its exposed throat. Its cries and struggles ceased. The basement became very quiet but for the rhythm of blood pounding through Nophel's ears.

"You will find," he said, "that this ghost is not as ineffectual as you might believe."

"You're just like them," the thing said. "You'll fade to nothing soon enough."

"They might fade, but they still shot you down."

"Unfair advantage."

It speaks as though it knows of the Blue Water, he thought. Perhaps it was bluffing, hinting at knowledge it could not own. He would have to be cautious if he was to expose the information he sought.

"It's been a long time since you opened your doors to the rest of Echo City," Nophel said.

"You'd be surprised." It spoke carefully, cautious not to increase the pressure of the blade against its throat. Nophel pulled a little harder, feeling the warm drip of blood on his fisted hand. The Dragarian caught its breath.

"What have you come for?"

"What have you?" the thing replied, and for a moment Nophel wanted to slit its throat. If it thought it could play with him, enter into word games while he was the one with the knife But, game or not, its question rooted in Nophel's mind. What had he come for? To question this thing and serve the Marcellans? Or to seek out something for himself?

"I've done this before," Nophel said, pulling the knife harder. He felt a slight give as it split the thing's skin, and he swallowed the sick feeling rising in him. He could not betray his lie for a moment, or else the Dragarian would never give him anything. It had to believe completely that he was ready to torture and kill it, and once that belief was implanted, he might have a short while to dig for real answers. "I usually start with the eyes, but with you, strange thing that you are, I think the wings will have to go first. You'll fight. I'm sure of that. You're a soldier, after all. But these chains will contain your fight. And I have all day."

There were no snappy answers, no clever retorts, and when he leaned slightly to the side he saw the Dragarian's strange eyes blinking softly as it considered its predicament.

"I was sent out to search for someone," it said.

"Who?"

"Someone… who will save us."

"Save you from what?"

"Doom," the Dragarian said. Nophel felt its fear, the shiver of terror that could not be affected. "The doom of Echo City, rising even now."

"Rising?"

It started to breathe more heavily, shaking. "Please don't make me-"

"What is rising? What doom?"

"The doom that has brought Dragar back to lead us-"

"Lead you into Honored Darkness. I know all your Dragarian swineshit. But I'm not here to listen to your religious crap, and I know you're not here to spout it."

"No," the thing said. "No."

"So what are you looking for?" It did not answer. "What? What?" He jerked back, tugging at the thing's hair even as he pulled on the knife, the sudden movement and violence startling one word from the terrified creature's mouth.

"Baker!"

"Baker?" Nophel whispered. My mother is dead, he thought, and he felt the Blue Water slithering across his tongue once again, smelled it sharp in his nose.

"Our spies tell us that he's back. He will go to her. And he was always ours."

If he had not been distracted, Nophel might have sensed what was coming next. He would have felt the thing's shaking lessen, heard its breathing slow, sensed the rumblings deep inside as it entered into some sort of internal prayer. And he might have taken the knife from its throat. But his mind was on his dead mother, that Baker bitch, and why the hell had this monstrosity come out of Dragar's Canton looking for It flicked its head from left to right and back again, pulling forward at the same time. Its slick hair, grasped in Nophel's fist, tightened around his fingers, and he felt the gush of warmth across his other hand as its throat opened.

The Dragarian cried out in pain, slumping as Nophel fell from its back. He released its head and the knife at the same time, and both thumped to the stony floor. It landed facing him, those stunning indigo eyes fading already as a puddle of blood spread quickly beneath it. The blood was black in the lamplight. Its eyes reflected little. Even as Nophel reined in his shock and crawled to the Dragarian, determined to ask more, why, who, he realized that it was beyond answering anything.

He knelt beside the dying thing and tried to deny the last word it had spoken. But it was beyond denial.

Baker.

Nophel spent a while in the enclosed courtyard. Oxomanlia clung to the sides of the buildings, and usually its sweet perfume would permeate the air at this time of day. But not today. He'd slammed the door behind him, cutting off the dead thing down in that basement, and he held his breath, paused in the moment between past and future.