Echo City (64 page)

There were bodies in the streets. Not many, but enough to show that the relative silence was far from normal. A mother and daughter lay dead beneath a second-story window, and a
sprinkling of mepple blooms had fallen across their bloodied clothing. Several Scarlet Blades had been killed and stripped outside a large, faceless building that had once stored produce from Crescent. The warehouse now stank of fruit turning to rot, and the dead Blades were adding to the smell. Each of them had a sword handle protruding from the mouth. Farther on, in a small square where a water fountain still gurgled cheerily, at least thirty people lay dead, with hands tied behind their backs and throats slit.

“Bastards!” Peer said, and Gorham shared her rage. He’d seen this before, three years ago when the Marcellans were cracking down on the Watchers and needed the city to know how serious they were. Back then, most of those killed had been Watchers and their families. Here, he suspected those executed had nothing in common other than a wish to follow their instincts south.

“Why didn’t the Blades get the message?” Gorham asked. He thought of those moths, lizards, and bats, drifting or running through the city and spreading the word he had given them.

“Maybe some did,” Rose said.

“Not enough.” He breathed deeply, taking some comfort from the fact that the Blades had been fed their own swords.

“We can’t stop every time,” Alexia said. “The city’s in turmoil, and there’ll be more. Peer and I saw the start of it, and it’ll only have grown worse.”

“You’re right,” Gorham said.
I’m not sure how much of this I can see without going mad
.

The ground shook. Things fell. They walked on.

Rose paused now and then and closed her eyes, frowning. After a couple of these occasions, Gorham asked her about Nophel, but she shook her head sharply and they moved on.
Not there yet
, he thought.
Maybe he’s dead
. He had no idea what had passed between Rose and the deformed man, and right now he had no wish to find out. They all bore the weight of their own past; he knew that better than most.

When they reached the River Tharin and started across Six Step Bridge, the going became tougher. A group of Scarlet Blades had set up a checkpoint on the bridge, and they were
charging people to cross. They were drunk and smashed on slash, and two of the female Blades wore what appeared to be male genitals on strings around their necks.

There were maybe a hundred people sitting across the bridge, some in front of the cafés lining each side, and others apparently camped on the road. Many were drunk. A couple appeared to be asleep, or dead.

Gorham sat down and the others followed.

“We can’t let them slow us down,” Rose said.

“No pay, no way,” a teenaged girl a few steps from them said. She held an empty wine bottle in one hand and a bag of slash in the other. Yet her eyes were clear and her voice strong. She had been crying.

“What’s the price of passage?” Peer asked.

“For you …” the girl said, lips pressing together. “Can’t you guess?” She pretended to drink from the bottle, wiping her dry lips. Tears streaked her flushed face. “Bommy tried to protect me. He … stood in their way.”

“They killed him,” Alexia said.

“Threw him in the river.
The river!
They cut off his … They didn’t even have the decency to cut his throat first.”

Gorham closed his eyes, trying not to imagine Bommy’s final moments.

“I’m waiting,” the girl said, leaning forward. “They’ve been drinking all morning. One of them fell down drunk just now; the others dragged him away. So I’m waiting.”

“If you try—” Gorham said.

“I’m not going to try anything. I’m going to do every one of them—with this.” She pulled her jacket open, displaying rips in her shirt, scratches across her neck, and, in her belt, the cheap, dull sword she must have found in one of the taverns.

“Come with us,” Gorham said. “We’re going south.”

“Your women going to give in peacefully, then?” the girl asked.

“Fuck them,” Alexia said. “Watch this.” Lying down behind Peer and Gorham so that she was blocked from the Blades’ view, she started to fade away.

“What the—!” the girl shouted, stumbling backward.

Rose was by her side almost instantly, easing her to the ground and whispering, “You’re drunk.”

The girl—wide-eyed, scared, in pain and mourning—seemed to react to Rose’s touch. She looked up into the young Baker’s eyes and smiled.

Gorham did not even hear Alexia stand, but he felt a nudge on the shoulder as she passed him by.

“Come on,” he said to Peer. “She’ll need some help.”

“I can’t kill anyone else, Gorham,” Peer said, almost manically.

“You won’t need to.” And he smiled at her, because he thought he knew what Alexia intended.

They walked up the slight rise of the bridge toward the roadblock, and the smell of bad wine and burning slash became much stronger. Gorham was careful to keep his hands away from the sword in his belt—in the shadows of a tavern’s canopy, he could see a Blade resting a crossbow on a wooden privacy screen—and he tried to offer an appeasing smile.
They’ll think I’m coming to offer Peer as our crossing fee
, he thought, and his smile suddenly felt like a grimace.
Relax … relax …

“I don’t like this,” Peer said.

“When I point, just look that way.” He hoped that Alexia was as serious as he thought. He hoped that she was still a soldier. And, most of all, he hoped that these murdering bastards were as superstitious as most Blades he had met.

One of the women with genitals strung around her neck staggered forward. She stopped ten steps from him, drawing her sword and pointing it. It had blood smeared across the blade.

“You wanna cross, she’s gonna pay,” she drawled, and Gorham saw a fleeting shadow appear and then disappear again behind the woman.

He raised his hand and pointed at the woman. “You pay first,” he said, and her head tilted back and her throat opened up. The string bearing her trophies parted and they fell. Blood sprayed up and out from the slash across her neck. Alexia turned her so that the struggling Blade sprayed her companions.

Then the woman fell heavily, and several steps away Gorham caught another brief glimpse as Alexia manifested for a beat.

“He pays too,” he said, pointing at the man closest to Alexia. His eyes widened and then his throat opened as well. He raised his hands and flipped quickly onto his back, gurgling as the front of his tunic turned red.

They panicked. Of the six left, five backed away from Gorham, swords forgotten, wine bottles slipping from their hands and smashing on the road. The last Blade stalked toward him but stared at Peer. He had hungry, mad eyes and an ugly lolling tongue. This time, Peer pointed, and the Blade’s eyes burst as an invisible knife was drawn quickly across them.

“I’m blind!” he shouted, holding his hands before his face but not quite touching. “Help me, I’m blind!”

The drunk girl raced past Gorham and struck the man around the head with the wine bottle. It shattered, and he fell. Gorham was going to reach for her, pull her back, but then Peer grabbed his arm, and when he looked at her he could see the pain of memory scarring her face.

As the girl set upon the screaming man with the smashed bottle, they ran, Gorham trying to snort out the stench of blood. Rose was with them, along with a crowd of others, given the opportunity at last to cross the bridge and flee south.

“The terror is rising; go south to Skulk!” someone shouted, and Gorham gasped at hearing the words he had sent out.

Alexia was waiting for them at the other end of the bridge, manifested again and wiping blood from her hand. When she looked up at them, Gorham knew that nothing needed to be said.

“Not far to go,” Rose said mildly. “And not long left.”

   It was not an easy journey. Being Unseen did nothing to ease Nophel’s pain or prevent his wound from gushing blood again. The nut pressed almost constantly to his nose, he became light-headed with its effect, but he was convinced that he would fall without it. A mass of Scarlet Blades were
stationed at the entrance to Marcellan Canton, standing close to one another as they stared south and west. In their eyes he glimpsed the reflection of chaos, but he did not want to look too closely.

If I glance back, I might lose all hope
. So he crept between them. Some turned and frowned, as if at a memory. Others stepped back and raised their swords, and if they’d taken a swipe at the thin air before them, his head would have rolled.

He passed through the guarded gate into Hanharan Heights when it was opened to allow a group of Marcellans to exit. He recognized them—three members of the Council—and none of them had ever spoken to him. He’d always been a subject of their disdain. It was good to see terror in their eyes.

His journey from the gates to the viewing room was a blur of pain and darkness. Many oil lamps in the Heights had been extinguished, and the halls and corridors were all but deserted.
They’ll be in the Inner Halls
, he thought.
Praying to their Hanharan god, hiding in his First Echo, begging for help, mercy, and salvation. Lot of good that will do them
.

In his viewing room, the mirror was cracked but not shattered. There were bloodstains across the floor where a body had been dragged. His father’s actions, perhaps, but he no longer cared. All he cared about was seeing that small group on their way and seeing his mother one more time. His offer of help had been quickly accepted, and he had shushed her concerns about him remaining in the city.
I’ll soon be gone
, he’d said;
I’d rather the time I have left is well spent
.

He tweaked the controls, but there was no reaction—no views of the city and no signs of life. Nophel groaned and went on, heading for the fifty stairs that would take him to the roof.
Don’t stop
, he thought,
keep moving on
, and he felt the fresh slick of warm blood across his chest.

The Scopes were silent, awaiting his return and his tender touch. He went to the Western Scope and looked out over the city, scanning the tumultuous streets and wondering where Rose and the others were now. His arms itched, and when he scratched, he reopened the shallow wounds.

“Not long now,” he said. “Not long, and I’ll be able to help.” He shooed away birds that were pecking at the Scope’s
eyes, washed fluid from its tense body, eased chains, and scooped handfuls of balm, working it into the folds around the Scope’s head and neck. Leaving the roof, he looked back at the other three Scopes and felt a pang of deep guilt at not tending them as well. But the city had ceased being his concern. There was only one way left for him to look.

Back in the viewing room, he relaxed in his chair with a gasp, his vision swimming, arms and chest bleeding. And then he laid his hands on the controls and started his search.

   Rose paused and closed her eyes again, and this time she smiled softly. “South of Six Step Bridge,” she whispered, “at the junction of two roads.”

Peer turned and looked up through the haze of smoke at Hanharan Heights, far to the northeast. She imagined one of those giant Scopes up there, extending its neck and turning its monstrous eye, and that brought a brief, unexpected memory of her mother. Long dead now. Peer wondered what she would think of her daughter. She thought she would be proud.

“And I see you,” Rose said. She looked at the others, still smiling softly, and nodded. “We can move faster now,” she said. “Nophel can see our way for us, warn us of dangers, and guide us along the easiest route to Skulk.”

“How can you talk to him?” Peer asked, but Gorham touched her arm and rolled his eyes. “Oh,” she said, quieter. “Baker stuff.”

As they moved on, Rose was muttering to herself, an ongoing conversation with a man no longer there. Constant vibrations were rising through their feet, and as they entered the heavily built-up southern half of Course Canton, there were fewer and fewer unbroken windows. Glass speckled the ground, crunching underfoot. They passed a burning house. People ran, some screamed, and there were more bodies.
Could fear drive so many to this?
Peer wondered.
Was Echo City really built on such a thin crust?
They came to a place where a building had collapsed across the road, blocking their route completely. A few people were digging with their bare hands, calling names as they searched for buried loved ones.
Peer wanted to stop and help, but Rose steered them through an abandoned house and emerged in a small herb garden, climbed a wall, and veered left into a narrow, deserted alleyway. Still muttering, her arms still bleeding, the girl seemed hardly there.

They followed Rose through gardens and squares, wide streets and narrow alleys, and even though all around them they heard the sounds of chaos, they seemed to travel in a bubble of calm. Nophel steered them away from trouble and urged them south, as quickly and as safely as he could. Peer was humbled by the trust the Baker placed in that poor, brave man.

Everything Peer saw—every scene of random violence, goodwill, or heart-wrenching tragedy—brought home to her more and more that the city was at an end. When the Vex arrived, everything would change. The four of them bore the responsibility of ensuring that there was a future for some.

Gorham was keeping her strong. He was a constant presence beside her, and whenever she glanced aside he always seemed to be looking at her. There must be such a desperate need for forgiveness in him, but now he projected only strength and confidence.

The bags of bloodflies twitched and moved, a sickening sensation but one that drove her forward.
We can release them soon
, she thought.
Soon
. And then whatever this new, young Baker had done to the flies would be out there, and there would be only one way to find out whether they had worked.

She thought back to the day she had first seen Rufus coming in across the desert. Even rushing across to him and back again, she’d been reticent.
Will I be able to step out into that desert? Will any of us?
And then she realized that the decider would not be what might lie ahead but what was behind.