Echo City (6 page)

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.

The final door closed behind them and the Pserans slipped away. As Gorham glanced around to see where they had gone, he heard a low chuckle, and when he turned forward again the Baker was there.

“Gorham,” she said. She seemed amused. “You look hungry. You like my Pserans?”

Nadielle was the only woman who knew how to make him blush.

“And Malia. It’s nice to see you again.” She sounded so sincere.

“And you, Baker,” Malia said. “Your Pserans said you have a feast for us.”

“They don’t lie,” Nadielle said. “Not unless I tell them to.” She was staring at Gorham, enjoying his embarrassment, and she was more beautiful than ever. Last time down here, as they were rolling on Nadielle’s bed, her legs wrapped around his back to hold him deep within her, she’d whispered into his ear:
They watch
. He’d known who she meant, because she was so proud of her chopped. They were like her children. It had given him a strange thrill then, and now that sensation returned. He glanced around again, feeling their eyes on him still, realizing that was what they were made to do.

Nadielle laughed out loud and turned, leading them deep into her laboratory.

Her seven womb vats were all full, condensation bejeweling their surfaces and dripping in a steady stream to the stone floor. The vats were made from metal or heavy gray stone—Gorham had never been entirely sure which, and he dared not touch one—and they stood propped with thick wooden buttresses wedged against the floor, giving the impression of a temporary placement. There were drainage holes around the vats to take any spillages, and bubbles of strange gas popped thickly from several of them.
I wonder what she’s chopping now
, Gorham thought. The awe he felt each time he visited her down here was rightly placed, because she could do something that no one else in Echo City was able to do. Many
attempted
to copy, and the results were the twin-twatted whore, soldiers with clubs instead of fists, men with cocks like a third leg … and, sometimes, monsters. But no one could match Nadielle’s talent or finesse, passed down to her from Bakers long past. No one ever had.

They left the vat room and entered a place of chaos. There were tables and chairs, cupboards and shelving units, baskets slung in chains that could be raised and lowered from the ceiling when required, boxes strewn around the room’s perimeter, books piled high or pressed open on the surfaces, and many fine glass containers bearing all kinds of matter—some fluid,
some more solid, and some that looked like heavy gas. Other containers held material not so easily identifiable.

Nadielle weaved across the room and through a curtained doorway. Gorham followed, and the smells of Nadielle’s living quarters inspired a rush of memories. He glanced at her bed—blankets awry, pillows propped up, books strewn across its surface—and wished that Malia had not come.

But their purpose here was serious, and Nadielle was aware of that. She guided them to her table and sat down.

“I know you’ve come for something important,” she said. “It’s not just another visit to read my mother’s books or to pore over the maps and charts I have down here. Not even …” She nodded toward the stacked bookshelf where the three Old Texts were hidden away. Gorham had read them, and the power and intelligence evident in books purported to be more than four thousand years old still staggered him.

“No,” he said, “not them. Although what we came to discuss might concern them more than ever before.”

“You Watchers,” Nadielle said, a smile pricking up the corners of her mouth.

“What do you mean by that?” Malia asked defensively.

“Always so serious. Always waiting for the end—”

“Not waiting for it,” Gorham said.
“Expecting
it. The city might have been here for five thousand years, or fifty thousand, but nothing lasts forever. We watch for Echo City’s inevitable end so we can be ready for it.”

“Don’t mock our purpose,” Malia added coldly. “When the end comes, we’ll have our way across the desert.”

“Maybe you will,” Nadielle said, nodding, and the smile was still there. “For now let’s eat. You’ve been on the road for a while, and no good decisions are ever made on an empty stomach.”

So the three of them ate. The food was cold but delightful. There were breads and cheeses, smoked meats, dried fruit, yogurts flavored with some of the finest spices, and a sake-fish whose pinkness and subtlety meant it must have come from the Northern Reservoir. Malia ate quickly beside him, eager to get to why they had come, but Nadielle savored each mouthful. Gorham wondered yet again how she managed to
procure such good food. The bread had the taste and texture of the very best of the Marcellan bakers, and the cheese must have been matured for a long time. He could ask, but he knew that her answer would be misleading.

“How are you, Malia?” Nadielle asked. The question’s meaning was obvious.

Malia shrugged, chewing a mouthful of mixed dried fruit.

Nadielle nodded slowly. “It heals, with time.”

“You’re twenty years old! If Bren and I’d had children, you could have been one of them.” Malia trailed off, staring down at the tabletop but seeing something much farther away.

“My apologies,” Nadielle said, but Gorham could see that she was not sorry at all. There was something about Nadielle that removed her from the world of Echo City. It wasn’t even the fact that she chose to live belowground, with only the Echoes and her strange creations for company. Sometimes when he looked into her bright young eyes, there was such age there that it terrified him.

“It doesn’t matter,” Malia said, still staring down at the table.

They ate in silence for a while, Gorham trying to catch Nadielle’s eye. But she looked down at her plate, cutting food very precisely, building meat on bread on cheese to gain the most of their blend of tastes. He watched her smooth hands and remembered them working at him with equal dexterity. Everyone who knew of her feared the Baker, and he wondered what his friends would think if they knew about their liaison.

When they had finished eating, Nadielle sat back in her chair and stretched her lithe body beneath the roomy clothes she always wore. Then she poured them each another glass of fine Crescent wine, raised her glass in silent toast, and waited for them to begin.

“We have people all over the city,” Malia said. “Watchers, like us, and sometimes just people ready to earn a few shillings. They’re instructed or paid to watch for certain things. Signs. Events out of the ordinary. Anything that might signify change. There are frequent false alarms, of course. Messages passed along that have already lost their meaning by the time
they reach us. Lies, from people bored of waiting and wanting some money.”

“But this is no false alarm,” Gorham said.

Nadielle raised an amused eyebrow, but he saw a flash of something darker. Interest? Fear?

“What
is no false alarm?”

Gorham glanced at Malia, and she nodded that he should continue. “It comes from three sources,” he said. “First, Malia knows an explorer of the Echoes, Sprote Felder, and he has limited contact with the Garthans. He studies them, believes he has their trust, and he says there is concern among several of their deepest settlements. He wasn’t specific, other than saying they were unsettled.”

“Sprote is a mad old fool,” Nadielle said, laughing.