Tim Lebbon - Echo city

"Yes," Nadielle said. "And she's very special."

"So what can she do?" Peer asked. "Fly? Burrow? Juggle?"

"She can help us find out exactly what's going on," Nadielle said, not rising to Peer's bait.

Gorham glanced at Peer and shook his head, but then he saw how scared she was. Nadielle's blocking our way across the bridge, he thought, and he listened for the flap of leathery wings, looked for the pale skin of a surviving Pseran manifesting from the gloom. He wasn't scared. But there really was no guessing with Nadielle.

"We need to find Rufus," Peer said. "That's the absolute priority, so if she can help us with that-"

"She can't," Nadielle said.

"Then why are we all standing here like spare cocks?" Malia asked.

"Rufus has left the Echoes," Nadielle said. "Another exit, half a mile from here. He's gone up into Crescent, and last I heard he was heading north."

"How do you know?" Peer asked.

"It doesn't matter how I know!" Nadielle snapped, and for the first time Gorham saw fear in her eyes. She's not grieving for the Pseran, he thought. She's terrified!

"What do you need?" he asked.

"You. Come with me. We're going down, way down, to find out whatever it is that's got the Garthans so agitated. You told me about Bellia Ton, the river reader. After that I… investigated further. There are other readers realizing that something's terribly wrong."

"But Rufus-" Peer began.

"Is a part of it all," Nadielle said, more gently now. "So you're right, he's a priority. But something incredible has begun, and I need to know. I need to check."

"Know what?" Malia asked. "Check what?"

But Nadielle ignored the question. Instead, she stroked the small woman's hair and smiled at her. The woman's expression did not alter.

"Why do you need me?" Gorham asked.

"To read me when we get there."

"Read you? I'm no reader. I've never done anything like that. I wouldn't know-"

"I can teach you. We have to go. Peer, you and Malia need to find Rufus. Malia, use your Watchers, however many are left. Find him, and bring him back down to my rooms. Do it any way you can, but it's important-it's imperative-that you keep his existence from the authorities. The Marcellans can't know about him. Nobody can know about him. Do you understand?"

"Yeah," Malia said.

"Do you understand?" Nadielle was almost shouting now, and Gorham took a step back, frightened for her, frightened of her.

"Yes," Peer said. Gorham looked at her, but she would not meet his eye.

"Because he might be the answer," Nadielle said, muttering now. "My mother wrote that she wasn't certain, but it seems it was all true. There's something in him that meant he survived. Out there, in the Bonelands. Something in his blood."

"And you can copy that?" Peer asked.

"I can try," Nadielle said. "But only after this."

"You're going with them?" Malia asked Gorham.

"Yes," he said. The Baker's uncertain, and more than that-she's scared. He was cold and felt the weight of Echo City's present bearing down upon him. He looked up at the dark ceiling of this place, invisible in the gloom, and imagined all those people up there going about their lives with no concept that everything could be about to change. And then he thought of Rufus. He lived out there for more than twenty years. The idea of that was shattering.

"We should go," Nadielle said, and Gorham felt a rush of pure panic. He went to Peer, stood before her, and waited until she met his eyes.

"I'll see you soon," he said. She only nodded, and he resisted the compulsion to reach for her, to hug her until she could understand. "Peer, there's so much I should say to you."

"Starting with sorry again?" she said, glancing at Nadielle and back to Gorham. Then she laughed. It was humorless, that laugh, and bitter, and as she pushed by him, he searched for any sign of regret at uttering it. But her face was hard, her eyes stern.

"I'm sorry," he said to her back. She raised one hand in a casual goodbye. As Malia started after Peer, Gorham reached out and grasped her arm.

"Take care of her," he whispered. Malia nodded. She knew about grief and loss, and as Gorham watched them crossing the bridge, he felt comforted knowing that Peer was in good hands.

"Thank you," Nadielle said when the others were out of earshot. He had never heard her sound so vulnerable, and when she slipped an arm around his waist and kissed his cheek, he wanted to push her away, hear her say something cutting or derisive. He needed her back to how she always was, because weakness did not sit well with the Baker.

"What the crap is this, Nadielle?"

"I'm not sure. I have suspicions." She shivered, hugging her arms across her chest and nodding at the short woman. "She'll help us find out, one way or another."

"You say we're going deep. To talk to the Garthans? Is she chopped from one of them?"

"I've already spoken with the Garthans," Nadielle said. "And you're right, they're scared. That's why we're going deeper than that."

Gorham felt his stomach drop, and the hairs on his arms prickled. "Deeper…"

"Down past the deepest Echo. Deeper than history."

"To the Chasm," Gorham whispered.

"Something is rising from there. I have to know what."

Something is rising… Gorham looked at the chopped woman, her wide, dulled eyes, and wondered what in the name of every god true or false she could know.

They returned to the Baker's laboratories to gather equipment and so that Nadielle could secure her rooms against intruders. She went about things with a distracted air, and several times Gorham tried to speak to her. But events had taken on a weight of their own, and she remained silent and distant.

The two surviving Pserans were nowhere to be seen. The thin, slick man who sometimes welcomed Gorham was also absent, and as the Baker's womb vats bubbled and scratched into the stillness, it resembled a very lonely place.

The small woman sat on a metal chair close to one of the vats, seemingly unaware of her surroundings. Her eyes were wide. She appeared to be listening.

Nadielle called Gorham through to her rooms, then opened a trapdoor he had never seen before. "Go down," she said. "Fetch ropes, climbing equipment, and weapons."

He went to Nadielle and reached out to touch her face. She pulled back.

"Go," she said. Then she turned away and slipped out into the vast womb-vat hall.

Gorham glanced around, remembering sweeter times he had spent in here with Nadielle. She had always been a demanding lover, and it crossed his mind now that he had sometimes mistaken a base desperation for passion. All those times he had felt were keen and honest were now taking on a sheen of betrayal. He closed his eyes and tried to remember making love with Peer, but too much time had passed and it was like recalling the memories of a friend.

Cursing, he descended through the trapdoor. The room at the bottom of the short ladder contained a hoard of objects from the city above. He shook his head in wonder at what Nadielle could achieve and went about gathering equipment for their journey.

We're going down, he thought, and once again he shut off the terror that held for him. There were phantoms and Garthans down there, and other creatures less known. Places unseen, old histories built upon, pressed down, hidden away for many eons…

He found a rope, good and strong. He shouldered it and picked up a wire ring of crampons and a hammer. The most he'd ever climbed was the side of a two-story building.

The Echoes were places of darkness and forgotten things, and anything could exist in their blackest depths. There were tales of giant sightless lizards and serpents formed entirely from shadows that made the old buried places their homes; it was said that packs of wild dogs had gone blind in the darkness and found their way by smell and sound alone. And then there was the Lost Man. Some said he was a phantom craving the luxury of flesh once more. Others claimed he was an outcast from the earliest rule of the Marcellans, adhering to some ancient religion long since dead in the city above. Sent down, he had lost track of time, and time had lost him, his body adjusting to eternal night and eschewing the passing of days to give him a vastly extended life. This version of the story claimed that he was happy to live here-and that he delighted when an occasional meal got lost in the Echoes and wandered into his domain.