Tim Lebbon - Echo city

"Yes, there are some. Though many have been silent for a long time."

The girl nodded. "Caution. That's good, in peaceful times. But now is no time for caution. Now is the time for chaos, Gorham. I want you to organize that chaos."

He shook his head. Am I supposed to understand all this?

"Everyone needs to go south to Skulk Canton. If all the assumptions come in just as we want-they bring Rufus here, he's amenable, my work progresses as fast as I hope, the results are successful-then we'll be on our way there too, as soon as we can. And we'll take with us the means for people to cross the desert."

"We will?" he asked, wide-eyed.

Rose smiled. And there again, in her eyes, Nadielle.

"Spread the word, Gorham. Come with me." She stood quickly, leaning against the table to steady herself, face paling.

"Are you-"

"I'm fine." She smirked at him. "I was just born, you know." She led him from the room, crossed the womb-vat chamber, and headed behind the three ruined vats. Nadielle had never let him go behind there, but he'd explored while waiting for Rose to be birthed. As well as the large curtained routes that led out into the Echo, he'd found three locked doors and one open. Behind the open door was a room with walls full of deep holes. No torch shone in there could reach the end, and he'd wondered what strange chopped things might have made them. Now perhaps he'd find out.

Rose unlocked each of the three locked doors by stroking her hand across a spread of moss on the door's surface. The moss changed color, the doors flexed and swung open, and when she shone her oil torch inside, she smiled.

"Very good," she said. "I remembered these were here, but I never knew how effective…" She trailed off, talking to herself again.

Everything she knows is like a memory, Gorham thought. I wonder what she knows about me? It was an uncomfortable thought-she was only a girl-but Nadielle had always claimed that her mind felt far older than her body. How confusing, how challenging to have experience and knowledge that did not match physical age. Indeed, in the world of the Bakers, what was physical age? A measure of time that they could contradict and tease. Their womb vats and what grew inside them defied time, and flesh artistry was only a small part of their talent.

"What are these places?" Gorham asked. The first room she had unlocked contained dozens of wooden boxes fixed to the walls, and shapes flittered at its shadowy extremes.

"These are our communications to the world," she said. "Bats in here." She pointed along at the other doors, naming each one. "Red-eared lizards, sleekrats, and…" She waved him over and they approached the final door together. It was open only a handbreadth, and the darkness inside seemed heavy and thick. There was no sound coming from within, but Gorham sensed a potential that was almost deafening.

"In here, more-unusual ways to send your message." She shoved the door open and shone her torch inside. The ceiling to the room was open, rising into a dense darkness that seemed to go up and up. Its walls were lined with what looked like flaking paper flicking in the breeze-and then Gorham saw that it was not paper at all, but wings. There were thousands of moths in the room, settled on the walls and apparently asleep. They seemed unconcerned at the light, and only a few took flight. The floor was scattered with dead moths, but only a small number. They clung, waiting, and he imagined the secret sound of thousands of fluttering wings.

"You should send the moths first. I'll tell you how they all work."

"And what will you be doing?"

"I have a vat to prepare," Rose said. "It's all up to time."

"Time and assumptions."

"Those too." Rose stared into the room for a while, lost and daydreamy again.

She's not even a day old and she's trying to save a world, Gorham thought. He reached out and took her hand, and she gave him a brief squeeze before heading back to her rooms. Her rooms. She's the Baker now. He followed, shivering when he thought of Nadielle, where she was at that moment, and what she might be facing.

Rose went to one of the many cabinets, opening and closing several doors, frowning as she looked for something. She paused, concentrating, then spun around and crossed to another cabinet. Behind the first door she opened was the bottle she sought. She brought it across to Gorham and unscrewed its lid. There was a new sense of urgency about her now. Even the act of sitting and eating together, so recently completed, seemed a world away.

"I'm going to give you-"

"You're chopping me?" he asked, stepping back. The bottle looked ancient in her young girl's hands, the glass uneven and distorted, coated in the dust of ages.

"No," she said sharply. "Aiding. Gorham, this won't hurt, it won't damage, and… even if it did, you can't think of yourself now. If I could chop you quickly enough, send you up with the message to spread yourself, I would. There are ways and means. But it would take far too long."

"But this?" he asked, nodding at the bottle.

"A gentle nudge in the right direction. Take this, sit in the moth room, repeat a short message again and again, and your voice will implant that message in the moths. They'll leave and spread it through the city. Same again for the other creatures. It'll be a dream in the ears of sleepers or an epiphany in those awake."

Gorham blinked, taking in what she had said. "Those rooms, they're always ready?"

"And they've been used in the past. That's how I know they work."

"But with methods like that, you could change the city. Steer events, influence…"

Rose stared at him, her silence speaking volumes. Then she tipped the bottle, spilling a splash of its contents into its upturned lid.

"The moths first," she said, "because they'll be most effective. Every message sent is one life saved, or a hundred if the listener spreads the word, or a thousand. And the only people who'll live past what's happening here will be those who take heed."

Gorham tried to comprehend what she was telling him. I can't carry that responsibility. But he realized instantly how self-absorbed that was. Rose was right-this was so much more than him. It was so much more than all of them. That was why Nadielle had left him.

Rose swayed a little, and he saw the weakness in her. She isn't going to last, he thought, and a momentary panic was subsumed beneath a determination to do whatever needed doing. They might not have very long.

"Will you know when…?" he asked, thinking of Nadielle.

"Perhaps. I'm not sure." She held the lid out to him and he took it from her, swallowing the potion and tasting mepple petals, stale cheese, and vinegar. It was not altogether unpleasant.

"The moths," he said.

"Yes."

"I've always hated moths."

"That's because they want it that way." She smiled softly, then turned to leave. "I'll be working on the vat if you need me."

"Thank you," he said, unsure of what for. He watched her exit the room, then followed without pause. He suddenly felt part of-instead of apart from-this incredible place for the first time. And as he approached the moth room he felt a burgeoning sense of hope that had been absent for so long. The terror is rising, go south to Skulk… the terror is rising, go south to Skulk…

He kept his eyes closed because his own fear was still there. He could sense them moving around him, approaching but not quite touching. He felt the soft draft from their wings and the soundless yet loaded movement of their bodies through the air around his head and face. Perhaps they were dusting him, but he could not quite feel that. What he did sense was that they were listening.

He spoke the same line again and again, and the potion Rose had given him did something to his words. They became abstract and meaningless, as though he were hearing them in an unknown language, yet the feeling as they were formed in his throat and left his mouth transmitted complete understanding. He saw the words in pictures that placed him anywhere in the city, yet always with the knowledge of where Skulk lay in relation to where he was. It was a mental map, and his words provided the route.