Tim Lebbon: Echo city

"I hate this," Malia said. "It's the future we're looking to, isn't it?"

"And the Baker's going to help us get there," Gorham said. "So what better place to hide than the past?"

He lifted the trapdoor himself and started down the narrow wooden staircase. There were several metal torches fixed to the wall, and he took one and lit its wick with the flints supplied. He shook it and listened to the thick slosh of oil. It sounded full. As ever, Nadielle seemed prepared.

Malia descended behind him, picking up her own torch, and their journey down to the Baker's laboratory began. The wooden staircase ended in a short, narrow corridor, at the end of which was a metal door, bolted shut. Gorham twisted four bolts in a specific sequence and heard tumblers turning. He pulled, and the door squealed as it came away from the frame. A breath of air sighed out from beyond, carrying with it strange smells and the hint of faraway voices. They might have been phantoms or the whispered communication of the Baker's guards. Whichever, he and Malia would meet them soon.

Beyond the corridor was a slightly sloping cave. It had once been a field of grapevines, and some of the thicker stems were still visible protruding above the dust. Perhaps the old fields had been ruined by overuse or poisoned by some long-ago cataclysm. In places there were huge, thick columns supporting the roof, gnarled and knotted with the twisted metal and cemented stone used to build up from the land below. There were footprints here and there, and, with no breeze to shift dust, they could have been recent or ancient. Some of them were his own from previous visits. It disturbed Gorham that he could not tell which were which.

He and Malia walked across the underground plain, their torches setting shadows dancing in the distance.

With a hiss, the first of the Baker's chopped came in. It drifted low, trailing several long tendrils in the dust as though drawing energy from the ground. Gorham had seen this one before and thought it might once have been a woman, but now it was something else. Six arms, four thick legs, and two sets of light membranous wings made it unique, just as all of the Baker's creations were unique. It dribbled something from its wide mouth as it hovered, and its obsidian eyes flickered this way and that-perhaps blind, or maybe possessed of a sight Gorham did not understand.

"Gorham and Malia," Gorham said. His voice sounded unnaturally loud, echoing into the dark distance.

The thing circled them, wings beating so fast that they were almost invisible. They were virtually silent, though their downdraft whisked up a cloud of fine dust that soon dimmed the effect of the torches. One set of arms reached forward-the hands were horribly human, fingernails blackened and sharp-and it came in quickly to touch their faces. Gorham was prepared, but he heard Malia gasp in shock behind him.

"It's fine," he said quietly. Her hand reached gently for his shoulder, seeking contact.

The thing flew away, and within heartbeats it was lost to view.

"I can never get used to this," Malia said.

"She's got a lot to guard against. A lot to be afraid of."

"With what she can do, I can't imagine her being afraid of anything."

"You'd be surprised." Gorham walked on, aiming for the far end of the field.

They passed through another door and started their descent through a maze of caverns and tunnels that confused him every time. They waited in the third cavern for what they knew would come, and the chopped man emerged from a crack in the wall within moments of their arrival. He was short and exceedingly thin, his head half the size of a normal man's, and his naked skin was constantly slick from some strange secretion. He moved with a disconcerting grace-almost dancing, like the troupes that performed on the streets of Mino Mont-and Gorham wondered how flexible his bones would be.

"My name's Gorham," he said. The small man glanced back, blinked softly, then continued on his way.

"I don't think he likes you, Gorham," Malia said.

"I doubt he even knows what we're saying."

The man led them from cavern to tunnel, cave to crevasse, and a while later they crossed a shifting rope bridge that spanned a dry canal. The bed was speckled with white shapes, and Gorham thought perhaps they were skeletons. He did not pause to make out whether they were human. He had never been this way before.

"How many routes are there to this damned place?" Malia said when she caught sight of the bones. Gorham did not answer, because he had been wondering the same thing.

They passed through an old village. Most of the buildings were in ruins, but there were a couple that still bore their roofs, almost fully tiled and with chimneys intact. Behind one of the glassless windows, in a building that might have been a temple to forgotten gods, shone a pale light. Gorham thought for a moment that torches had been lit to mark their way, but then he realized that was a foolish idea. This man had been sent to guide them in. And Nadielle would do nothing so obvious.

"Gorham," Malia whispered.

"I know." At the sound of their voices the light flared slightly, then blinked out. The phantom went to hide.

Beyond the ruined village they hit an ancient road, where wheel ruts cast thousands of years before were still visible. The man led them along the center of the road, and then without warning he turned right and ran into the dark.

"Wait!" Malia called. Her voice did not echo at all, as if the pressing darkness dampened it.

"Hey!" Gorham went to follow, but the man was already out of sight. Slipped away into a crack in the ground, he thought. He wondered how many of the Baker's chopped were watching them.

"So what the crap are we supposed to do now?" Malia said.

Gorham looked around, turning slowly and following the light from his torch. "Nothing," he said at last. "We're almost there."

"I've never come this way before."

"Nor I. Like I said, she's being very careful."

"Well, when she hears-"

"Hush."

Malia fell silent, and Gorham closed his eyes briefly. Yes, when she hears what we have to say. But right now he was trying not to look that far ahead. In the dark, in the coolness of forgotten times, he was simply looking forward to seeing Nadielle again.

"You must be hungry," a voice said. "Thirsty. This way. The Baker has a feast for you."

Gorham smiled, and five steps from them a chopped woman lit her torch. There were three of them in all, standing within striking distance of Gorham and Malia. Until that moment, none of them had been visible. They were naked, and their skin seemed to shift in and out of focus as the oil torches flickered. They each had a third arm protruding from between their breasts that ended in a wicked-looking serrated blade, and spines along their sides were raised and ready to spit. The Pseran triplets. Nadielle had told him about them-Three of my best, she had said, three of my most perfect-but this was the first time he had laid eyes on them. He knew now why the Baker was so proud. Beautiful, shapely, exquisite, intoxicating-and given cause, any one of them could kill him before he blinked.

"What in the name of Hanharan…?" Malia whispered.

"No," Gorham said, "nothing to do with him at all."

The Pserans started walking, keeping far enough apart to avoid presenting a combined target, and Gorham and Malia followed.

He had been to the Baker's laboratory many times before this visit. Each time it had seemed slightly different-dimensions altered, design subtly shifted, the space it occupied flexed or folded-though the one constant was that it was filled with equipment that meant nothing to him. He knew some of what Nadielle did but never how she did it. That had always been the way of the Bakers, and the mystery was part of her allure.