Tim Lebbon - Echo city

Readers across the city cried out, or ran, and some of them died where they worked, hearts riven with shock. Whatever the source of their knowledge-water, air, tea leaves, mepple flesh, stoneshroom visions, or rockzard-liver trails-their warnings were the same: Something is rising. They heard the sounds from below and spread word of them through the streets. Their warning dispersed, and no one who heard them could deny the sense of panic overlying the city. It started in the darkness and continued into the day, and sunlight brought no calming touch.

In Marcellan, a fat man approached the city wall, hoping that he still held power in his given name. Behind him trailed a small army of faithful soldiers, a score of Scarlet Blades whom he had been nurturing for years so that, when the time came, they would put the name Dane ahead of Marcellan. He tried to exude confidence and authority, yet he picked up the sense pervading the city that morning, and it was a wilder place. The wall guards stepped in front of the gate, and the fear in their eyes when they saw him gave him hope.

Where the Garthans rose-quietly and secretively in places, yet also interacting with the citizens in violent, startled ways that they never had before-word quickly spread of cannibalistic invasion from below. Many residents panicked and fled their homes, carrying their children and weapons and nothing else, and soon the streets were awash with people. The population spread out from those areas touched by the Garthans like ripples fleeing a stone's impact.

Scarlet Blades tried to contain the panic, and sometimes they succeeded. But here and there fights broke out and blood was spilled, not always the blood of civilians.

The Marcellan Council debated the news they were hearing from across the city. Hanharan priests advised the government, and their advice concerning the Echoes was always the same-Hanharan lives down there, and he exhales only goodness. They blamed the Garthans, and official word went out that an invasion was under way. Across the city, Garthan and Scarlet Blade blood mingled in short, brutal combats.

In the many places where news was vague and panic had not yet reached, and where people sat quietly eating breakfast or watching the sunrise, perhaps holding hands with their loved ones or smiling softly as their children readied for school, they heard a quiet, insistent noise from below: thud… thud… thud.

They frowned and wondered what it could be.

Gorham sat and watched the girl come to life before him. There is my daughter, he thought, and yet she could never be. She was chopped, as much a monster as the Pserans or the Scopes, and she would not know him as Father.

He had carried her from the womb-vat room into Nadielle's bedroom. Naked, slick from the fluids that had nurtured her to such a size so quickly, she had already been looking around with those wide, curious eyes. Yet she had nestled into him, arms around his neck and head pressed against his chest. He'd felt her heartbeat, and that had given him pause. She really is alive.

Now he watched and waited, and it was amazing. He would never understand exactly what Nadielle had done here and certainly not how. But as the girl's awareness grew and her knowledge seemed to expand in her head like a balloon, so he believed he was coming more to terms with what she was.

The urgency was still there, crushing him like a giant hand bearing down on both shoulders. But Nadielle had left the girl here to prepare for Rufus's return. In a way Gorham felt useless, but he was also thankful that he could watch as the Baker's processes continued outside the vat.

She's the new Baker, he thought. She had the body of a girl maybe ten or eleven years old, but her eyes were already those of an adult. There was still confusion there and traces of fear, but at times Gorham also saw a striking wisdom and a depth of experience that would have been impossible in anyone else her age.

And yet her true age was measured only in hours.

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, trying to settle the feeling that he should never have been here. He was a pragmatist-that had driven him since his early years, and it continued to guide him through his adult life as a Watcher. Yet what he watched here could not be real. Nadielle scoffed at the word magic, and Gorham had always allied it with the beliefs of Hanharans and the other, smaller religious sects throughout Echo City. Yet what more suitable word was there? If an act such as the Baker's chopping used talents, forces, and knowledge far beyond the understanding of anyone else in the city, wasn't that magic? It consisted of processes rather than spells or hexes, but he suspected they were processes that no one else but the Baker could perform, on the very edge of any science it was possible to understand. Nadielle had told him that much was passed down from chopped Baker to chopped Baker-he could see the stark evidence of that in the burgeoning knowledge before him now-but she had never explained how she did what she did. The Bakers had been practicing like this through the centuries, and that lent power to the concept of their own particular magic.

The girl was sitting on the Baker's bed, a gown tied tight around her waist, with Nadielle's books spread around her. There were sheafs of paper piled everywhere, notebooks, and those ancient books the Baker had brought from her secret rooms. The girl read as she ate-she had been eating ever since the birth-and she never once glanced at Gorham. He might as well not have been there, but he continued to bring her food and drink, and he knew that she was more than aware of his presence. Her hair was long and tangled. Her skin was pink as a newborn baby's. Yet it was her eyes-his eyes-that made his breath catch each time he saw them.

She ran her hands across one of the oldest books, turned a page, and touched the ancient words. She read and gasped. She can read, Gorham thought. She's been in this world for mere hours and she can read, comprehend, understand. Crumbs fell from her mouth as she chewed, and she brushed them from the books with a gentle reverence. She understands the value of knowledge, and that's something some people don't realize in a lifetime. The girl was more amazing with every moment, and Gorham found himself observing from a greater distance. The first time she spoke, he was so startled that he thought he'd been woken from a dream.

"There should be another book," she said.

Gorham stood from his chair and backed away. He nudged against the wall, knocking something from a shelf. It smashed on the floor, but neither man nor girl averted their gaze.

"No," he croaked.

"She would have left it with you to hand to me."

"No," he said, firmer this time. "Not with me. She left nothing with me." That bitterness burned, and the girl's knowing smile stunned him.

She glanced around at the scattered books again, as if looking for one she had not yet seen.

"How much do you know?" he asked softly.

"Enough," she said. She rubbed her temple, then lowered her hand, the smile now gone. "Enough to know that something is missing."

Gorham shook his head, going over Nadielle's final words in his mind. He'd been angry, and perhaps sad, but he was certain he remembered everything that had been said. If she'd left something for the new Baker and told him about it, he would have remembered.

The girl keened and tipped to the side, resting her head against the open page of a huge old book. Gorham dashed across the room, and his every step closer made her more real.

"What's wrong?" he asked, reaching out but not quite touching. Though there were tears, her eyes were still older than they should have been. She gasped, sobbed, then pushed herself upright again. She seemed to be in pain, but when she reached out and took his hand, the touch was gentle, the hold firm.