Tim Lebbon - Echo city

After ascending for a while, Gorham felt something grab the nape of his neck. It was a subtle, intimate touch, and he shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. But the feeling remained-and suddenly it was going deeper, as if an invisible hand were forgoing the physical contact to close its fingers around his mind. It drew him away from the cliff face.

"Nadielle!" he whispered, looking up. But she was hanging with one hand, waving the other around her head as if she felt the same. "No," he said, as he felt himself pulled farther from the rough rock wall. "No!"

He held on tight with his right hand and swept the left across the back of his neck. There was nothing there, but the feeling remained. It lured him, easing him away and tugging him down, gentle but insistent, and when he blinked he saw the Lost Man's image imprinted on the backs of his eyelids.

He had never seen an expression so wretched, hopeless, and lost.

"Leave us!" he roared. In this oldest of places, which had until now known only their cautious whispers and the hush of their footfalls, his shout was shocking. In the distance someone screamed, or perhaps it was the echo of his own cry. The deep darkness seemed to come alive, and there was movement all around. But in his struggles, Gorham sensed no life to the movement and no real purpose. It was as if the shadows themselves-settled down here for so many thousands of years and disturbed only by ghosts-were writhing awake at the sound of a living voice.

"Climb!" Nadielle said, and he needed no further prompting. Ignoring the sense of being pulled, straining against it, Gorham climbed hand over hand, trying to catch up with Nadielle so that he was closer to their single torch. Somehow his hands found handholds, his feet found footrests, and his panicked breathing became the only sound.

Slowly, the touch faded, washed away by sweat. Perhaps it was the altitude that lessened the contact, or their determination to shake it off. But, though relieved, Gorham also felt a terrible sadness at leaving that poor thing behind. It only wants company, he thought, and he let out a single loud sob. How often could history trap souls such as this? He was a traveler down here, an ignorant, an invader in the past who did not know his place. He felt a sudden overwhelming need to reach the surface again-however dangerous the present was becoming-and to find Peer, seek her forgiveness, and hold her tightly to him. They were alive, and they should revel in that. There was no saying how long it would last.

Nadielle climbed above him, but hers was a different touch. Desperation instead of passion. Convenience in place of love. She was as lonely as the thing they were leaving behind.

At the top of the cliff face, Nadielle did not pause for breath. She started to run again, not responding when Gorham spoke to her, and he had to save his breath just to keep up. She never seemed to tire, and he wondered whether she was secretly taking some unknown drug to keep her muscles warm and loose. They rose from one Echo to the next, and they might have been moving for a whole day without pause before she finally slumped against a wall. Above her, a painted portrait of an old Marcellan stared down, his eyes smeared over with black paint to give him a monstrous demeanor. Fangs had been added to his mouth. The defiler and the Marcellan were both long dead, but something about the defiance pleased Gorham.

He sat next to Nadielle without trying to speak. He drank water from his water bottle, realizing that he would have to find somewhere to refill it again soon. And then Nadielle broke her silence.

"I'm sorry," she said, voice breaking, tears starting to flow. "We're away. I can tell you what's rising." She took his water bottle and drained it before she began. "The Bakers have been here as long as history…"

Nophel stared down at his hands. I went away again, for a while. When Malia came back she looked right at him, seeing him for the flesh and blood he was.

"You need to tell me everything," she said, "and quickly. Time's running out."

Nophel glanced at the woman, Peer, who had been left with him while Malia went for medicines. She had not spoken, though he'd felt the pressure of her questions.

"I can tell you only what I know."

"Peer, I'm sure you want to begin," Malia said. She closed the door and stood by the window, looking out onto the street, chewing herbs and pressing paste into wounds on her left hand and forearm. But Nophel felt all of her attention focused on him.

"You disappeared," Peer said. "When I was untying you, you… faded. Then you were gone."

"A potion from the Baker," Nophel said. "The old Baker. I told you, Dane Marcellan and she were friends."

"A potion to make you invisible?" Peer said. Disbelief rang through her words, and yet Nophel smiled, because she could not deny what she had seen.

"It's called Blue Water," he said. He closed his eyes, the good and the bad, and in doing so he brought back the images of those Scarlet Blades dying at his hand. It had been horrible, feeling his knife part their skin and flesh, seeing their eyes as they knew death had come for them. And yet he could not feel sorry. He thought of their families and friends, who would be told of their deaths today, and the people who had lost a father or brother, mother, or sister. But pity was something he had so rarely been shown that, when it did present itself, he hated it. Pity was for the weak and useless and those who had no aims.

"And he gave it to you so you could get this message to the Baker?" Malia asked.

"No, before that. Something came out of Dragar's Canton, and he wanted to know what."

"Did you find out?"

"Yes. And then I killed it."

Peer held her head in her hands, rubbing at her eyes. She's been through a lot in a short time, Nophel thought. Malia, the other woman, was harder and more dangerous. But even she was in a state of shock. For all their posturing, the Watchers had never been fighters. He was at an advantage here, and he had to remember that.

"I know who the visitor is," Peer said, staring Nophel in the eye.

"Who?"

"We're asking the questions!" Malia roared, but Peer held out both hands, as if warding the two away from each other.

Nophel looked at his hands, willed the Blue Water to act again. I did it myself, he thought, but however much he tried convincing himself of that, it did not ring true. It had been fear and danger that had forced the change, not a message from his own consciousness. Perhaps if Malia came at him with a knife… but he was not sure if even then it could happen fast enough. He didn't know how many people, if any, had ever been given the White Water antidote, but he possessed something amazing. Perhaps soon he would gain some control over it.

"A friend," Peer said, putting herself between Nophel and Malia. "A good friend of ours and the Baker. But we think the Dragarians have taken him."

"The Dragarian said he would go to the Baker," Nophel said.

Neither woman answered.

"So where is the new Baker?"

"Gone somewhere," Malia said, quieter now. "She'll be back soon."

"She knows about your friend?"

"Yes," Peer said. "But she also knows that things are stirring in the Echoes."

"What are you going to do with me?" Nophel asked. He was looking at Peer, but it was Malia who answered, wincing as she pressed the paste into a gash across her left forearm.

"I can't trust you," Malia said. "You're Marcellan, and-"

"I'm not Marcellan!"

"You work for them. You come from Hanharan Heights with a message tube, snooping around our business, and you can turn fucking invisible!"

"So you'll kill me, then?" Nophel asked.

"No!" Peer snapped, and when Malia looked at her, Nophel did not like the look in her eye.

"I'm with the Marcellans only because of the dead Baker," Nophel said, and the old bitterness burned at the back of his throat. "She was my mother and she abandoned me; the Marcellan I serve took me in. It has been the place where I've been safest. But I've always worked only for myself."