Tim Lebbon - Echo city

Baker… Baker…

He had helped them destroy her. Brought them evidence, gathering it through the Scopes, aiding them in building a case, until in the end the Marcellans had decided that it was not in Echo City's interest for her to answer any case. They had wanted her work halted and her voice silenced, and over one terrible night they had done just that. He'd stood beside the Scopes that his mother had chopped to serve the Marcellans and watched as they destroyed everything she had ever done. In that fire, so Dane had assured him, her remains were turned to ash. They had not even wanted her body crucified on the walls as a warning to others, because there were no others like the Baker. Not anymore. Their actions-and his efforts, investigations, and betrayal-had ended the long line of Bakers once and for all and closed a page on Echo City's history. It had been the greatest day of his life.

And now this flying thing from out of Dragar's Canton had come looking for the Baker. He will go to her… And he was always ours. Did they really believe that their old prophesy was coming true?

Nophel touched the deformed ruin of his face. None of the Unseen seemed to see this, he thought, but he knew that was not true. It was simply that the physical meant so much less to them than it did to normal people. A bird called somewhere, startling him and moving the moment on. Behind him was the closed doorway, ahead the narrow alley that led back to the main street. Once on that street, he would have no choice but to return to Dane Marcellan, taking what little information he had. He did not belong out here. He had never killed except at a distance, and the real blood on his hands made him feel sick.

So he walked through the stinking alleyway, soon finding himself standing at the opening where it vented its stench onto the street. He watched the people passing by, and they did not see him. I just killed a man, he thought, though the Dragarian was like no man he had ever seen. It intrigued him that only in death did he think of the flying thing as a he rather than an it.

"New?" a voice asked. Alexia closed her hand around his wrist.

"You've already asked me that."

"Oh. Come and see." She led the way, and even though she had let go of his arm, Nophel found himself following. She weaved through the oblivious crowd, and, unlike before, he found it easier to follow. He still brushed past a fat man and a little girl, but they barely noticed, wiping away a floating spiderweb or the breath of an errant breeze. And as they walked, things began to change.

At first it was Alexia who was different. He saw her fading again, becoming less substantial and showing refracted, distorted parts of the world through her body. Then he felt a shifting of perceptions, something drawn out of him and hauled in by Alexia's closeness and his compulsion to follow, and her body manifested again. This time, it was the world around them that grew vague.

"No," he said, but he kept walking. "Leave me, I have to go." But Alexia turned and smiled at him, mouthing something that seemed to drift in from a great distance: I'm only showing you.

The people around them faded away. Life left the street, color was leached from the buildings and plants as if exposed to a decade's sun in moments, and soon Nophel and Alexia were standing in an Echo City that held no life at all, not even their own. This was a place frozen between times, its plants motionless and lifeless, the sky above wan and empty, and even though the sun hung overhead, it was a pale echo of its true self, unmoving and cold.

"What is this?" Nophel asked, surprised that his voice sounded so normal. He stepped across the street and touched a building. Stone, cool and gritty, just as it should feel.

"The final existence of the Unseen," she said. "This is what awaits us all. I come and go, but every day brings me closer to being here forever."

"No," he said. "It won't be like this for me. My mother would have never meant it to be-"

"Your mother was an experimenter in arcane things!" Alexia spat, and such passion seemed incongruous in this neutral place. "For every thing she got right, there were five that were wrong."

"How do you-"

"The Marcellans gave us her Blue Water-me and many others. They wanted us to be their secret fighting force." The anger left her as quickly as it came. "This is what we became."

"Not me," Nophel said. "Not me."

"Because you're her son?"

He turned and started walking away from Alexia. Change back, he thought. Take me back, I can't be like this… His walk turned into a run, and when he glanced back, Alexia had vanished. His was a lonely, endless gray street in a gray city, and for a moment, until he rounded a corner and saw the blur of movement returning, he thought he might be there forever.

He cried out in joy as the world came to life around him, fading in from some distance until the people were close enough to touch. He did so, startling one woman into a scream, rushing farther until the colors were all there again, the smells and sounds and sights of the city he both loved and hated. As he ran as fast as he could toward Hanharan Heights, all that was left to return was him.

Gorham sent Devin and Bethy back to Course. Peer saw him whispering to them before they left. Maybe they'd simply come this far as a guard, but she thought not. Gorham was planning things moment by moment, and now he had something else for them to do.

"Where are they going?" she asked.

"Spreading the word. Come on." He led the way down into the shadows. Malia descended through the hatch next, and Rufus and Peer followed. It was a strange feeling, leaving the cool open air and feeling the pressures of the land crushing in, and the darkness was complete. Say goodbye to the stars, Gorham had said, and Peer found herself glancing up at them moments before Malia closed the hatch. She had never appreciated the beauty of the sky more than at that moment.

Gorham moved confidently, handing them each a torch from clips on the walls and guiding them along a short corridor to a metal door. He twisted some bolts and the door hissed open, a rush of air pulling past them as pressures equalized. So they can smell what's coming in, Peer thought, and the idea was deeply disturbing. Gorham had warned them about the things they would see down here, the chopped that the Baker used to guard her laboratories, and she was terrified.

He barely paused when they were through the door, even though the space around them opened out so that the walls were way beyond the reach of their torches. Peer had the impression of wide open spaces, and the occasional gnarled columns that the torches danced across did little to alleviate that. Rufus glanced back at her, and the light reflected in his wide eyes. Green eyes, greener than I've ever seen. The more time she spent with him, the more she was beginning to believe there was more to him than met the eye. Breaking out of Skulk, he had been so willing to kill, and now he carried his bag of strange things once more. Gorham had even returned the weapon with which Rufus had killed Gerrett. We all have to trust one another now, he'd said, as if trust could get them far.

Well, perhaps it could. She wondered whether Gorham trusted her or, when he looked at her, did he see only hatred and the potential for revenge? And with what had happened, could she even trust herself?

After a while Gorham came to a halt, hand raised. "Here they come," he said. "Stay calm and-"

Something knocked him to the ground and flitted away into the darkness. Peer heard the gentle flap of huge wings and saw something unknowable flash through the puddle of their torchlight.

"It's Gorham!" he shouted, scrambling to his feet again and raising his torch. "It's Gorham and Malia, and we bring two friends!"